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AN OPERETTA IN PROFILE 



An 



Operetta 

In 

Profile 



BY 

CZEIKA 



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J^^^VWiS?,^^/ 




BOSTON 
TICKNOR AND COMPANY ^ 
211 Fremont Street 
1887 






-«trOl 



Copyright^ 1887, 
By Ticknor and Company. 



All rights reserved. 



5Smi)erstta pregs: 
John Wilson and Son^ Cambridge. 



DRAMATIS PERSONiE. 



>c. 



N 



Raya Yog. 
The Portrait. 
Mrs. Pepperton. 
Lucy Pepperton. 
The Statues. 
Mr. Skeggs. 
Miss Skeggs. 
Midnight. 
The Author. 
The Committee. 



The Doppelganger. 

The United Brooms. 

Mrs. AduUam. 

The Policeman. 

The Attorney. 

The Attorney's Wife. 

The Butcher's Wife. 

Madame Chiff-Chaff. 

The Dressmaker. 

The Dissatisfied Husbands. 



The Charactagent Victims. 

Mary McGinnis's Green Gown. 

The Fastidious Family. 

My Ideal Young Man. 

Raya Yog's Marionettes. 

The Three Presbyterian Burglars. 

The Girl who made the Diagram. 



I 



An Operetta in Trofile, 



"A gentleman horny master parson, who 
writes himself armigero ; in any hill, quit- 
tance, or obligation, armigero," 

Papa is on a salary; that means — 
it means what I should call a life of 
vulgar fractions. We never have any- 
thing whole and perfect of its sort. It 
is always one half, or two thirds, so to 
speak, of something else. Thus when 
the Peppertons, who are our leading 
family, give their two annual receptions, 
and I attend, — as of course I must, — I 
am not actually wearing a crepe-de-chine 
gown, but one fourth of papa's new 
hat, one half of mamma's spring wrap, 
and all of Dick's bicycle stockings. 



8 A;i 0/^ctrtfa in Profile. 

Should I stra\- into the Arabian Nights, 
and should the old formula bo pro- 
nounced over niv beloncrinc^s, — "If vou 
wear this form through mere passing 
conjuration, resume your former aspect," 
— I should change on the spot, and 
resemble nothing so much as one of 
those attenuated clothes-horses they 
offer you in Gorman hotels in place of 
a closet, o\\ which you desperately hang 
}*our hats, ovxrshoes, gloves, wraps, and 
gowns in a heap. On the same prin- 
ciple our Christmas-tree is really papa's 
now groat-coat, and his name o\\ a sub- 
scription list is simply eight pounds of 
our roast beef. We are as unreal as 
any astronomical appearance, — sunrise, 
or the starrv march oi the constella- 
tions ; wo more what we seem than the 
great golden moon coming up out of 
a cleft of hre to poise one breathless 



A7t operetta in Profile. 9 

instant on a sapphire sea. Should you 
pull our bell before conventional call- 
ing hours, you will hear a rushing and 
scrambling and hurrying about. That 
signifies we are caught sweeping or pud- 
ding-making in tin-pedlers' gowns. Tin- 
pedlers' gowns are those that should be 
sold as rags to the tin-man, but are worn 
instead till five o'clock in the afternoon, 
because one tailor-made gown in a sea- 
son is the largest precipitate to be had 
from those difficulties in solution that 
we call our income. Still, it is conceded 
that we are people of some distinction, 
because papa spent all mamma's money 
ten or twelve years ago, and because if 
you substitute '* ulph " for " le," the final 
** le " of our name, it becomes the same 
as that of a great English family dating 
from the Crusades, as it is spelled on 
their tombstones. 



" To be called into a huge sphere and not 
to he seen to move in it, are the holes where 
the eyes should he," 

Some classical old body said, on the 
death of a friend, ''that the theatre of 
all his actions had fallen." Now, when 
papa dies, the theatre of our actions will 
be closed for want of funds, — that is, 
society will cut us ; that is, I should not 
be asked to Mrs. Pepperton's perennial 
receptions, and Martha Curtis will nod 
kindly, but will not invite me to her 
equally perennial lunch-party. And 
though Miss Curtis and Mrs. Pepperton 
look microscopic, — beside, say, the 
Influence of the Romish Church on 
Civilization, or Esoteric Buddhism, or 
Geological Epochs, — they make as re- 



An Operetta in Profile. ii 

spectable a theatre for one's actions as 
if they had been named Portia or Cal- 
purnia, and lived two thousand years 
ago, presenting to view the very bare 
arms and impossible drapery of that 
period. Tied up in this fact are the 
strings that pulled our Operetta into 
shape ; for it was I who first suggested 
an Operetta. To begin, though, you 
should have the social geography and 
moral boundaries of our town, for your 
better comprehension of — no, sympathy 
is the word, with — my conclusions. 
They are mine; right or wrong, broad 
or narrow, they are mine absolutely, as if 
I had drawn them under some banyan- 
tree in Paradise, without prejudice from 
Adam, Eve, or the Serpent. And I want 
to make them yours ; for your only good 
reader is that loyalist who thinks just as 
you do while he is under your banner. 



12 An Operetta in Profile. 

As some towns might be situated 
exactly on the equator, I should say 
ours stands precisely on the line of the 
average. Anything that was special 
about the life, house, or character of 
anybody in town would be, and is, dis- 
couraged. There is an average standard 
of commonplace and inefficient action 
for the conduct of matters in general, 
and whatever ranks, that is regarded with 
suspicion. A man with his trademark 
on his opinions, a clever, inventive, or 
even a very thoroughbred or fascinating 
person, is vaguely considered doubtful ; 
and such individuals are so coolly re- 
ceived and so ironically regarded when 
they chance to stray among us that the 
length of their stay is sure to be limited 
by the length of their first house-lease. 
If it is true that ideas are the only reali- 
ties, then our town, properly looked at, 



An Operetta in Profile. 13 

must present a mere dissolving view on 
a faint horizon. We encourage noth- 
ing pronounced. Even the very chil- 
dren affect measles and scarlatina mod- 
erately, taking them in a perfunctory 
manner, as a matter of business to be 
got out of hand. And though there 
may be the average number of chronic 
invalids, few people venture on the de- 
cided step of dying; and in that event 
the community takes it rather ill, as if 
*' they should have died by attorney," 
or as if the town possessed a patent of 
immortality, and deceased had infringed 
it. It is quite the same in minor mat- 
ters; for communities, like individuals, 
stamp a miniature of themselves, even 
on trifles. Within twenty-five miles of 
New York city we wear last year's fash- 
ions, as if we were — Philadelphians. Our 
winters blossom now and then in a 



14 An Operetta in Profile. 

stunted german, but we have not yet 
learned the use of the word " cotillion ; " 
and in the year 1885 we were guilty of 
our first Afternoon Tea, and people con- 
sulted each other privately about the 
gowns and etiquette proper to such 
occasions. 

So conservative are we that Raya 
Yog told papa at his own table that 
we had never assimilated the Dec- 
laration of Independence, and that we 
should do well to adopt the American 
Constitution, which was a wise and be- 
nign theory of government. Whether 
Raya Yog is Hindoo or Parsee, or what 
is the precise difference between the 
two, I am not clear; but he is olive- 
tinted, though well-bred, and we all 
regarded him on a '* Greenland's Icy 
Mountains " — no, '' India's Coral Strand " 
— basis, and were as much astonished 



All Operetta in Profile. 15 

at his sarcasms as though the Sphinx 
should open her granite lips and give 
her Egyptian opinions of a cockney 
tourist and his plaids and slang. As I 
have told you, we are people of consid- 
eration; therefore our dinner given to 
Raya Yog was styled ''a social event" 
by the local newspapers, and the princi- 
pal Nonentities of the town were present, 
to be informed by this prying heathen 
*' how McMahon, ex-hack-driver and 
present justice of peace, told a voteless 
and bribeless defendant that he should 
decide against him, no matter what tes- 
timony and witnesses should be pre- 
sented ; and how he habitually decided 
in the very teeth of evidence, sharing 
the profits with certain petty shopkeepers 
and attorneys. He was," said Raya 
Vog, '' a votary of the modern black 
art, bringing about results by the help 



1 6 An Operetta in Profile. 

of a ring as magical as Aladdin's. And 
he administered law after the fashion of 
Milesian kings, and with the rude and 
vigorous candor of the fourteenth cen- 
tury." And as papa admitted afterwards 
(privately) that it was true, and could 
not be touched upon because of certain 
political interests, that huge engraving 
in our dining-room of the Declaration 
of Independence is simply ridiculous ; 
for we have not yet come into the Union. 
For the rest, there is a continual social 
friction that rubs the tender edges of 
one's soul. You know how Queen Vic- 
toria was afraid of being ** as common 
as the Cambridges." We are as much 
afraid of being '* common " as her Maj- 
esty ; but we are never sure who are oilr 
Cambridges. Nothing is substantive and 
perfect of its kind. Our pleasure is 
always a second-story pleasure, and the 



An Operetta in Profile. 17 

bottom planks are the capricious neglect 
or cordiality of somebo^iy else; conse- 
quently quite out of our reach, and likely 
to drop out at any time. We have not 
even a liking of our own. We can never 
be quite certain if we wish to go or to 
stay away, to take up a thing or drop 
it, till we learn what Lucy Pepperton 
means to do about the matter. Finally, 
there is something special in our moral 
atmosphere. A great many persons in 
our community go as far as this with 
charity, — that *' they believe all things." 
Poddies, "■ also one of ours," sees and 
hears what she can, imagines what she 
can neither hear nor see, and gives it all 
to the town in a daily edition. The 
first-named people supply the carbon 
and oxygen ; Poddies adds the chlorine. 
The result is something very special in 
our moral air, — special in an unpleasant 



1 8 An Operetta in Profile. 

way. There you have us in rough out- 
line, and can figure before I begin to 
tell you in what a genial, liberal, pro- 
gressive, and pleasant manner we were 
likely to set about our Operetta. 



'*'Tis no matter how it he in tune, so 
it make noise enough,'* 

The Operetta — the scheme of it, 
rather — found general favor. No one in 
the town could sing, and that is the first 
requisite of an Operetta. As I told you, 
the suggestion was mine. I have always 
in mind that possible closing of the 
family theatre for lack of funds, and the 
need of a younger and more energetic 
manager than papa, — a — in short, a 
husband. And why should not the 
Operetta prove a fairy godmother who 
could turn a pumpkin into a coach, and 
take me in it to find the fairy prince? 
Not that I believe in fairy princes except 
as a manner of speaking; the race is 



20 An Operetta in Profile. 

extinct, — died out, at any rate, with Na- 
thaniel Hawthorne. His wife found him 
" so tender and true, so just, so mag- 
nanimous always " under a yoke of 
poverty, in spite of the daily frets of a 
difficult life. Ah ! it makes the heart 
stand still, and brings tears to the eyes. 
No wonder she *' could not realize her 
happiness," and passed her days in ** a 
delightful confusion of bliss." A woman 
might serve such a man on her knees, 
and thank God ; '' but when comes such 
another? " A girl's fancy is generally a 
theatrical property-room, from which 
she fits out the men of her acquaintance, 
the real man simply acting as an animated 
clothes-horse. But young as I am, I 
have made the grand discovery of life, 
— that the average young man is simply 
a grown-up boy. Though his shirt-front 
is so mysterious, his manner so reas- 



An Operetta in Profile. 21 

suring and impenetrable, his smile so 
bland, he is only a grown-up boy. More ! 
he is generally a boy in difficulties. He 
is happy as a centaur who should be 
unable to accommodate his legs to the 
upholstery of a drawing-room, and his 
head and shoulders to the economies 
of a manger, since he is sure to have 
$12,000 a year ideas on $1,200 a year of 
income. He sympathizes with girls on 
the matrimonial question as a trout does 
with the fisherman. Every flat or dwell- 
ing house shows him twelve or fifteen 
hundred reasons against matrimony, in 
its rent; and he has a multiplication- 
table ready for Cupid, warranted to take 
the point from his best arrow. If ever 
the little blind god is likely to prove too 
much for him, he has only to fall back 
on his arithmetic ; and when the sirens 
sing, in place of tying himself to the 



22 An Operetta in Profile, 

mast, he simply ciphers out the probable 
cost of their music. Only in his summer 
vacations he takes with his canoe a cer- 
tain amount of sentiment; and having 
selected a tennis-court and a " base-ball 
nine," looks about him for a '' summer 
girl," one easy-mannered, susceptible, 
available for a crescendo flirtation (lim- 
ited to two weeks). He lays away her 
memory with his racket and bat, or pos- 
sibly coins the affair into dollars, — writes 
a verse or two like a sigh, with a catch- 
ing refrain, for ** Life " or some such 
periodical, and gets a cheque for it. All 
this before the summer Ariadne who 
took his canoe party for a voyage of 
life, and has packed up all her best sen- 
timents, and the family blessing, has 
well closed the mouth that she opened 
in astonishment when he bade her good- 

by. 



Alt Operetta in Profile, 23 

During the winter he sometimes pays 
a bill, and sometimes a call, — both from 
necessity; and then figure to yourself 
the embarrassment of a tribe of friendly 
savages meeting a white traveller for the 
first time. In such a call we are the 
friendly savages. The young man is to 
us as rare, unexpected, and inexplicable 
as the white traveller. We survey him 
with awe and dumb delight in the true 
savage manner. The heads of our tribe 
talk stale newspaper, and inquire after 
his grandmother; we girls giggle con- 
vulsively; and having no idea what to 
say to him, indeed knowing nothing to 
say, giggle again. The clock ticks in 
that intrusive way peculiar to clocks ; 
Bob and Kate rub about his legs and 
crush his hat. His honors sit uneasily 
on him; he shrinks under the family 
stare, and the general joy appalls him 



24 An Operetta m Profile. 

lest he should be accepted in advance 
for some daughter of the family. When 
he goes, we are quite certain he will 
never come again; and he never does. 
I doubt if Psyche herself could marry 
out of a '* suburban home " in a second- 
rate suburban town. 



" You are no surer, no, than is the coal 
of fire upon the ice, or hailstone in the 
sun," 

The second requisite for the produc- 
tion of an Operetta in our town is Lucy 
Pepperton. The high protective tariff 
on ideas, the chronic persecution of any- 
thing above the average, has left a com- 
munity without force or individuahty, 
— something Hke those inert sea-jellies 
that sting ; only, being human, superior 
to the jelly in the power of active envy. 
Our local form of attack on any enter- 
prise from whose executive list we have 
been omitted, is to strike it with creep- 
ing paralysis by declaring the proposed 
affair '' doubtful," '' mixed," or '' not re- 



26 An Operetta in Profile, 

spectable ; " and so little self-confidence 
is there anywhere, that the Pepperton 
family, who rule among us by virtue of 
wealth, liberality, public spirit, and tact, 
are the only known antidote for such an 
attack. Consequently, as I said, Lucy 
Pepperton was the second requisite. To 
obtain her co-operation the Operetta 
was announced as *' for the benefit of 
the church," and many curious and 
most unexpected events resulted from 
this announcement ; among Others a let- 
ter from Raya Yog, — a remarkable letter, 
which will be given in its proper place. 

The sme qua non was that the Oper- 
etta should be original ; that is, it should 
be written by some one in town ac- 
quainted with local needs. The Oper- 
etta must of course be given to the 
world by a club. Whatever the matter 
in hand, a club for despatching it is as 



An Operetta in Profile. 27 

necessary to us as to Hercules; and 
the dramatis personce^ like the stock in 
a ready-made-clothing store, must be 
adapted to fit those persons who would 
be invited to join the club, and the 
Operetta itself to our town-hall. When 
the New Zealand Exploring Society ex- 
cavates our town, I prophesy that its 
town-hall will give them a longer pause 
than anything else they may find on the 
American continent, it will be so impos- 
sible to decide fi'om any ordinary rea- 
soning for what it could have been 
intended. It is of no particular style, 
and seems to be of no special use. If a 
dance is in question, it has neither dress- 
ing nor supper rooms. As a lecture 
room or theatre, it has no private en- 
trance, no withdrawing room, and no 
stage, except a narrow shelf at the end 
of the room like a schoolmaster's ros- 



28 An Operetta in Profile. 

trum. It could not have been devised 
for the public, — at least for more than 
three hundred of it, for that is its seating 
capacity, — and it might be an embod- 
ied nightmare for its hideousness, or a 
packing-case for Bartholdi's Liberty from 
its shape ; all of which infirmities must, 
as is evident, be carefully considered in 
the make-up of our Operetta. There 
was no difficulty about the music. The 
Operetta, like an American girl abroad, 
could marry itself to any wandering air 
of foreign extraction that proved suit- 
able ; but its libretto must be local. 

It was very easy to find the writer; 
for there was but one woman in town 
capable of it, — a woman much despised 
by us for her cleverness, as a late fashion 
or invention is set at naught in a country 
village. She was very subject to new 
and excellent ideas, that we at first ridi- 



An Operetta in Profile, 29 

culed and then adopted, but for which 
we never forgave her; and — crowning 
weakness ! — being very simple and mag- 
nanimous (I am not sure, by the way, 
that one of these qualities is not a con- 
sequence of the other), she was continu- 
ally assisting her enemies and obliging 
her detractors, — for which she received 
her just due of contempt. She had not 
an idea of making much of her wares ; 
one would have supposed, from her readi- 
ness when our committee visited her, that 
it was an every-day matter to have libret- 
tos on hand, — like pies. She brought 
out her ideas as if they were bits of old 
lace from some perfumed box, and al- 
tered and re-altered them to suit our 
demands, as one takes in or lets out the 
body of a gown, — all with such careless 
ease that though her libretto has since 
been pronounced clever enough for the 



30 An Operetta in Profile. 

professional stage, we felt not so much 
that she exhibited genius, as a frivolous 
cast of mind inconsistent with her cir- 
cumstances, as she is a woman of forty 
and of limited income. Even in society 
it is impossible always to get on without 
ideas; and if these entities prefer the 
company of old coats and shabby gowns, 
one must take them where they can be 
found, — but with a certain disapproba- 
tion, as in our case ; as though our author 
had stolen her manners and libretto from 
Mrs. Pepperton, who on an income of 
twenty thousand a year might be sup- 
posed to be in a position to set up ideas 
and refinements of feehng, and keep 
them up in good style. 



"■ Have you the lion's part written ? 
Pray you, if it be, give it to me, for I am 
slow of study." 

Meantime we examined the sketch 
of the first act. Curtain rising on a 
gallery of Statues (an excellent scene 
for the narrow shelf that must make our 
stage) ; lights down ; music, tum-ti-tum, 
tujn-ti-tum ; violoncello throb and muf- 
fled drum-thud, — a far-away note of 
preparation ; statues, — fisher-girls, flow- 
er-maidens. Morning, Spring, etc., some 
twenty of them : a pretty effect, and an 
excellent idea for using girls of bony 
pattern and the awkward persuasion ; 
girls who habitually sit on one foot and 
walk with stiff elbows and short steps, 



32 An Operetta in Profile. 

and are mentally unable to get through 
a line without a giggle, yet whose fathers 
own corner lots or something in Wall 
Street. Hidden in antique drapery, and 
toned down and kept in by drill, they 
(not the fathers or the corner lots) 
would damage the Operetta as little as 
could be expected. Their leader per- 
force must be Lucy Pepperton ; for 
although the first scene of the Operetta 
was not yet written, and we were still in 
consultation over it, that dear Poddies 
was already making morning calls to 
discuss the improprieties of the Venus 
de Milo and her sisterhood. By way of 
checkmate we were obliged to lose no 
time in getting out a photograph of the 
''Minerva Giustiani" (we called it, by 
the by, the " Mother of the Gracchi," as 
better suited to the Poddies mind) ; also 
an announcement that twenty-five yards 



An Operetta in Profile. 33 

of unbleached muslin would be the 
smallest possible quantity required by 
each Statue, and that Miss Pepperton 
would lead the Statue dances. These 
last were carefully characterized as 
stately minuets, the first to be danced 
to the allegro. Opus 10, of Beethoven. 
Not at all because our town knows 
Beethoven as a dramatic writer, a man 
leading delicate fantasies from sombre 
depths to dizziest heights of shivering, 
rapturous harmony, voicing in one and 
the same breath the Hallelujah chorus 
of the whole world, and mankind's wail 
of intolerable anguish, — and that with 
such weird notes of preparation, such 
marshalling of forces, such dainty, elfin, 
flying repetitions of haunting sweetness ! 
Far from it ! The town holds his writ- 
ings as heavy, dull, and ugly, — therefore 
respectable. 



34 ^^^ Operetta in Profile, 

Getting back to the libretto as the 
curtain rose on the darkened gallery of 
Statues, a deep resounding bell slowly 
sounded the twelve strokes of mid- 
night. Rose-lights began to glow and 
deepen on the Statues, animating by 
slow degrees and coming down from 
their pedestals, so many skips and stops 
to so many bars of music ; posing with 
devitalized, then with vitalized limbs, the 
music energizing with them in a languid, 
swaying measure, deepening into notes 
of weird stir and warning. The Statues 
wheeling, hesitating, pausing, advancing 
to form the minuet; at which juncture 
the Portrait (the only one in the gallery), 
a life-size of George Washington in his 
youth and the hero of the Operetta, 
drawn by the spell of the hour, steps 
from its frame and leads the measure. 

Now, about this portrait there could 



An Operetta in Profile. 35 

be no question. The mantle of the 
leading role could fall on but one pair 
of shoulders, — those of a young man to 
whom fate had already assigned one 
trying role^ that of the single good parti 
in town. It was fortunate for us that he 
counted more than six notes in his 
voice, and not more than one pair of 
legs and arms on the stage, and added 
the graces of wit, humor, and dramatic 
genius to those of money and social 
prestige ; for he was as inevitable as 
death. And perhaps it is time to say 
here that he was down on my private 
programme for something more, — the 
required fairy prince; that is, if, as I 
hoped, the Operetta should prove a true 
godmother, and present me with Cin- 
derella's luck and her pumpkin. 

The libretto went on to say that the 
statue minuet having occurred in that 



36 Alt Operetta in Profile. 

precise half hour in the century in which 
inanimate objects may claim the privilege 
of living at will, Midnight in vain at- 
tempts to recall the dancers to her 
kingdom of Silence and Shadows, the 
curtain falls on the Portrait and his 
family of Statues in full revolt and pre- 
paring to enter the world of life. 



" You have not seen such a thing as it 
is ; I can hardly forbear hurling things.'* 

So behold us fairly launched on the 
first act and its rehearsal in the Pepper- 
ton parlors, full of a pleasantly import- 
ant sense of well-being in our familiarity 
with their yellow satin upholstery and 
white and gold furniture ; and finding 
in the management that bouquet of 
privilege, that piquant sense of the envy 
of the excluded, that brings one into 
sympathy with the gods as disposers of 
men, with the right to much laughter at 
their expense, — or with any other petty 
power, as a head-waiter, or a new rich 
family who are not allowing time " to 
wash off the double gilt of their oppor- 



38 A 71 Operetta m Profile. 

tunlty." We found anxieties also, as if 
they had been pins stuck in the yellow 
satin sofas. Like the people of Nineveh, 
our amateurs did not know their right 
hand from their left. Nor could the 
Statues be brought to remember their 
poses, or the business of the minuet, so 
anxious was each individual to attract 
the special attention of the Portrait, who 
was also the notable parti of our society. 
And did he but glance in their direction, 
lo ! a universal simper rippling across 
their marble calm, and every Statue of 
them swaying about on her pedestal. 

Next, the setting of the second act, 
from the peculiarities of the stage, was 
also pronounced impossible ; and yet we 
were unwilling to relinquish this second 
act as it stood. In it the Portrait, having 
been turned away from all the principal 
hotels because of his inexplicable family 



An Operetta in Profile. 39 

of Statues, boldly enters a private dwell- 
ing. This is the residence of Mr, Skeggs 
and his wife ; they regard him as some 
Romeo, who, having invited the ballet 
to supper, had forgotten the way home 
afterwards. But the Portrait explains 
that he is a reporter of the New York 
"■ Herald," travelling with an automatic 
show that he has bought on speculation. 
There was an airy smartness in the dia- 
logue, and cleverness in the situations, 
the conceits, and the local hits, that 
made us unwilling in any way to alter 
the libretto. Yet it demanded a hand- 
some interior, a drawing-room, — and 
drawing-rooms demand furniture. Now, 
as there were no dressing-rooms, no 
side spaces worthy of mention (mere 
standing room for the dramatis personce) ^ 
no back entrance, no second staircase, 
where could any drawing-room furniture 



40 An Operetta in Profile. 

be stored during the progress of the first 
act? It could scarcely be handed in 
piece by piece over the heads of the 
audience. We were at a dead-lock, and 
it looked as if the fairy godmother Oper- 
etta was playing me a game of chess in 
place of manoeuvring her pumpkin, and 
was finding me a checkmate instead of 
the traditional glass slipper. *' The times 
were out of joint," and it should have 
been I '' who set them right." Instead, 
there was handed me a diagram like the 
cabalistic chalk-mark that some tramp 
scores over your door. There was a 
long story behind it, if you only knew 
how to read it. 

Plans and diagrams are stupid, per- 
haps, but this one is not to be skipped. 
This bit of clever simplicity was devised 
by the girl who had specially not been 
asked to join our club. People about 



An Operetta in Profile. 



41 



a 




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42 An Operetta in Profile. 

her were talking about our difficulties. 
" Difficult," said she, '' not at all ! " and 
then and there dashed off this sketch 
and gave it to the Portrait, my fairy 
prince, coupled with an offer of Oriental 
rugs, cushions, and curtains, — killing a 
wasp, you see, with sweet oil ; the wasp 
being I. 

I am giving you this Operetta micro- 
scopically ; that is, you are looking 
through the microscope, and I am speak- 
ing as one of the animalculae. So, 

" If with such talent Heaven had blessed her, 
Had I not reason to detest her ? " 

You remember what the Soothsayer told 
Antony: "Thy lustre sickens when he 
shines by; make space enough between 
you." Antony, as one of the " three 
world-sharers," could choose his space 
where he liked. I, since I had no 



An Operetta in Profile, 43 

Egypt like Antony, was making space 
for myself in my drop of water. It re- 
quired no Soothsayer to explain to me 
who threw me into the shade by her 
shining, nor is much arithmetic required 
in counting the marriageable men among 
us. There are eight. Of course there 
are other men in town, — derby-wearers, 
tax-payers, voters ; and there may be 
sprouting great men among them. Hav- 
ing read biographies of everybody dis- 
tinguished, I am deeply convinced that 
I shall bewail too late having snubbed 
the future Man of his Time and Hero of 
his Hour, because the Men of their Time 
are never labelled and assorted like 
seeds, so that one never knows what one 
has in hand, an oak or a cabbage. Not 
looking at matters prophetically, how- 
ever, there were in our social parlance 
eight men — with the addition of such 



44 ^^^ Operetta in Profile. 

New York exotics as could be coaxed 
to risk our savagery — and the Portrait, 
who might find that the sHpper he was 
carrying about in his pocket fitted that 
girl's foot better than mine, if I were not 
all the more prudent. If you were ever 
in Antwerp, when you looked at the 
cathedral tower springing up as if in 
triumphant escape from the wretched 
little booths and shops built against it, 
did it ever occur to you how those 
chimes playing the hours and- half-hours 
up there in the clouds, had sounded 
those swift measures in elfish, tripping, 
airy intricacies of harmony not only for 
the glee of Antwerp, but for whatever 
befell through the Spanish Fury, with 
the men of Antwerp piled in dying 
heaps at the base of the tower, and 
through the shuddering decay of the 
gay and haughty city, and now in its 



An Operetta in Profile. 45 

slow revival? — and always as you hear 
them, so coldly gay, keenly sweet, swift, 
fine, and far away. Just such an orches- 
tra of petty piques and paltry pinings 
and girlish greed sounds with its fine 
pipings in the average soul. Whatever 
the rush and roar of humanity without, 
though the curtain is slowly rising on a 
new era and listening to its solemn 
chorus, the world waits trembling to 
learn what scene is set upon the stage. 
Do not blame inc. I am an average 
girl of an average community, giving 
you facts as I find them. I am a geog- 
raphy. Would you fly out at a geogra- 
phy because it describes Siberia and 
Sahara? Indeed, is it so very certain 
that in my place at the board you would 
not move the same pawns? Long be- 
fore my day the great Science of Naming 
Things was invented expressly to recon- 



46 An Operetta in Profile. 

cile our deeds to our moral conscious- 
ness. Ask priests and lawyers if most 
actions have any more right to the 
names allowed them in polite society 
than a grocer's tea to the Chinese char- 
acters on its box. That very diagram 
is a tribute to the justice of my conclu- 
sions. It was accepted. At once the 
Committee on Other People's Business 
clamored that the artist should be ac- 
cepted also. In view of some such 
contingency, the first rule of the club lim- 
ited the numbers. But the Committee 
O. O. P. B. clamored only the louder; 
and on several of these occasions I saw 
** around the corner," like Bunthorne, 
the Portrait and Lucy Pepperton observ- 
ing me with some earnestness, and I 
thought they wore an air of disapproba- 
tion. An excellent fairy godmother, 
that Operetta, thus far ! 



''He will lie, sir, with such voluhility 
thatyoti think Truth a fool," 

Mr. Skeggs — that is the man who ac- 
cepted the role — is a human mosquito; 
he must ahvays sting. Small, pale, 
dry, meek, he is an Edison for inven- 
tion — of scandal. He will tell you a 
story absolutely ruinous to some other 
person, vouching for its v/orst details 
from his own personal knowledge, and 
stamping it with a " I know it is so," in 
which there shall not be a grain of truth. 
It shall hold together by mere cohesion 
of lies ; and for all that there will be a 
certain fitness in it that will get it a 
hearing and belief. He has the relish 
for another's loss or mortification or dis- 
appointment that you might have for 



48 An Operetta in Profile. 

strawberries. Like a green looking- 
glass with a twist in it, he has an un- 
rivalled capacity for letting you know 
the ill that others think and say of you, 
and for showing you at a disadvantage. 
It was not to be hoped that he could 
conceal his delight in the angles of the 
statues. As for his jokes about the Por- 
trait's Pygmalion-like influence over so 
many Galateas, they were served up 
with the coffee at half the breakfast- 
tables in town. He found a similar 
charm in his pro-tempore partner, Mrs. 
Skeggs. That young lady appraised 
the goods of this life by some such 
singular standard as if, say, a pound 
avoirdupois was not a pound unless it 
had first been subtracted vi et arniis 
from a neighbor's store or bin. She 
had indignantly declined a role as statue, 
and as eagerly accepted that of Mrs. 



An Operetta in Profile. 49 

Skeggs, as something superior and 
wounding to her companions. But 
finding the Statues officered by Miss 
Pepperton and constantly attended by 
the Portrait, she turned sulky and muti- 
nous towards the much-enduring Com- 
mittee, and revenged herself by saying 
everywhere that her mamma considered 
'' statue dances and poses indelicate and 
improper for young women of good 
family." The Statues retorted by giving 
in confidence Mr. Skeggs's proposed ad- 
vertisement: "Wanted! an expression 
for Mrs. Skeggs's face; right one pre- 
ferred, but any better than none." 
Through the social clearing-house of 
the town, these descriptive touches came 
promptly back to the subjects thereof. 
We live too near a great city to attend 
church armed with revolvers to shoot 
our enemies in the next pew; but we 

4 



50 All Operetta in Profile, 

did what we could, hampered by our 
poHce system and pubHc opinion. Mrs. 
Skeggs would not look at Mr. Skeggs; 
Mrs. Skeggs would not look at the 
Statues. The Statues turned their backs 
on Mr. and Mrs. Skeggs, and were pain- 
fully audible (for Statues) and uncivil 
(for anybody). The Portrait played 
with easy naturalness and grace, but was 
quite unable to redeem the dramatic 
twist in the situation. And the Portrait 
had difficulties of his own besides, when 
at this juncture in rushed three masked 
Burglars, after the manner of the Tarry- 
town Band, with loud cries, heavy tramp- 
ling, bursting of doors, overturning of 
chairs, and noise enough to wake the 
dead; for these young Burglars were — 
for reasons — in the mental position of 
resenting everything in general, and the 
Portrait in particular. 



An Operetta in Profile. 51 

No one in one's own circle views, or 
is viewed, with unassisted vision. Ac- 
quaintances are taken like liquors, not 
'' straight," but ** warm with," or com- 
pounded in punches or slings of what 
one knows about their grandfather, their 
plate, their note-paper, their brother-in- 
law's defalcation, or their daughter's 
marriage in Paris. And I dare say that 
is the real reason why travellers and 
strangers are apt to impress one as 
crude, impossible, odd, or unattractive, 
because we see only one edge of their 
identity. In our town, at any rate, peo- 
ple are viewed altogether within the 
limitations of what we know or think we 
know about them. And nowhere are 
these limitations more sharply defined 
than between the churches, — I mean by 
that those called Episcopalian and Pres- 
byterian ; the German and Roman Cath- 



52 All Operetta in Profile. 

olic communions being considered by 
us simply as concessions to the lower 
classes. It is for some mystic reason un- 
derstood that a Presbyterian woman will 
not of her own accord call on an Epis- 
copalian woman, as suspecting pride ; 
and that all advances from " the lost 
sheep of the Church of England " are 
received by the Presbyterian flock with 
suspicion, as likely to savor of conde- 
scension. With all this well in view, we 
had selected Presbyterian Burglars as a 
bid in the Presbyterian ticket-market. 
We caught them with guile ; we invited, 
coaxed, urged, lassoed them by aid of 
certain charming girls. They came ; but 
it was John Knox and Mary Stuart, 
Patrick Henry and the Stamp Act, 
Benjamin Franklin and the Court of 
France. They were as happy, gracious, 
and accessible as three wooden images 



An Operetta in Profile. 53 

from the tobacconist, refusing every- 
thing but to be daunted by the Pepper- 
ton upholstery. On our side perhaps 
we were too bland, too much like the 
Spanish grandees addressing each other 
familiarly, reserving for outsiders all the 
punctilio of their new titles. There is 
as much of that brand of original sin 
packed away in suburban towns, where 
incomes average from twenty-five hun- 
dred to three thousand dollars a year, 
as in the haughtiest court in Christen- 
dom; while certainly there is no more 
difficult going, than trying to keep step 
with somebody who has not a soul above 
buttons, who can never forgive or forget 
your silver and horses, and who will 
never allow you to take him at a valua- 
tion of his own sterling worth, — that 
makes the guinea, whatever the stamp. 



" There is nothing either good or bad hut 
thinking makes it so." 

Imagine now this trinity of defiance, 
brought by the Hbretto into relation with 
the Portrait. Personally that young 
man was as unobtrusive as his coat; but 
he represented so many things, — his 
father's real estate, his mother's leading 
in society, his English tailor, the New 
York Yacht Club, a great many sardonic 
conclusions harvested from his own ex- 
perience, and the immovable style of 
the whole race of cool, composed young 
men of the period. He had, besides, 
personal beauty and distinction, and the 
leading role of the Operetta, which he 
played with an art true to nature, and a 



Alt Operetta in Profile. 55 

finish true to art. Against every one of 
these details our impetuous young Bur- 
glars of the other Church were in full 
bristle ; for we are very apt to tell our- 
selves that Number Two thinks too well 
of himself and is conceited, when all the 
time it is we who think too highly of him 
for our own comfort, and get no relief in 
declaring that we despise him, because 
in reality our contempt is envy. 

In the libretto, when the leading 
Burglar had bound Mr. and Mrs. Skeggs, 
and the subordinates had gone in search 
of the silver, the Portrait introduced 
himself as a reporter of the New York 
" Herald," there in a professional and 
strictly neutral capacity, to get the first 
account of the burglary in for his news- 
paper; and the Leader explained, for 
the benefit of the " Herald," that he be- 
longed to '' The Scientific Protective 



56 Afi Operetta in Profile, 

Union of Burglars," for equalizing the 
distribution of goods, — not in the old- 
time noiseless, sneaking manner, after 
the fashion of wrongdoers, but openly 
and aggressively, as a right. As the 
Leader grew interested in his argument, 
the Portrait saw and seized the advan- 
tage, wrested the Leader's revolver from 
his careless hand, bound him, locked in 
the subordinates, unbound Mr. and Mrs. 
Skeggs, and reversed the whole situation. 
The crescendo movement of the music, 
expanding here into a vigorous quar- 
tette, with a refrain from the Statues, was 
counted as one of the best moments of 
the Operetta. But the head Burglar, 
who throughout the dialogue had been 
sarcastic, jeering, whatever you like that 
is intolerable, here clenched the revol- 
ver hard, and refusing to sing, proved 
to us that the turn of events was ridic- 



II 



Aji Operetta in Profile, 57 

ulcus and unreasonable, — more than 
hinting, also, with boyish petulance, that 
the Portrait was the saddest mistake of 
all. There we were, facing in earnest 
what one hopes only to read about, — • 
an "unprecedented situation; " till the 
Operetta's one Policeman, seeing our 
critical state, rushed into his part to our 
rescue. He was one of those hard, 
stout, smiling, red-faced men that are 
apt to be general favorites, no one 
knows just why. His coming turned 
up the lights and set the '' Wheels of 
Progress " again in motion. As when 
the water began to drown the fire, and 
the fire to burn the stick, and the stick 
to beat the dog, and the dog to bite the 
kid, and the kid to go, and the old 
woman to get home, — all the sulky 
dramatis personce came out of their 
comatose condition and " played up " 



58 All Operetta in Profile, 

in a joyous revulsion of feeling to the 
Policeman. He was padded, and provi- 
ded with the swagger and stutter of a 
certain well-known officer. And when 
he hunted for bullets in the walls and 
furniture, indifferent to the shouts and 
kicking of the imprisoned subordinates, 
and severely reproved Mr. Skeggs for 
calling the police at that uncomfortable 
hour of night, and sympathized with the 
masked Burglar as an honest and ill- 
used citizen, and attempted to arrest 
the Portrait, who escaped by jump- 
ing through the window, — he was met 
and seconded in a way that threw the 
whole act out of dramatic balance, and 
was artistically unjust. Yet who could 
say, " Ladies and gentlemen, you allow 
paltry spite to obscure what is really 
graceful and sparkling comedy, and are 
giving the honors of the evening to 



An Operetta in Profile. 59 

local hits and broad horse-play"? We 
could and we did shrug shoulders, and 
exchange those long, unwinking stares 
by which one talks without the dan- 
gers of speech. But our marionettes 
were now enacting a drama of their own 
within the Operetta's limits, tangling 
the leading-strings and confounding the 
action; and who could prevent them? 



"The art of the Court, — as hard to 
leave as keep," 

And now it is probable, had it not 
been for the Pepperton colors at the 
mast-head, that the Operetta would 
then and there have suffered shipwreck 
at the hands of her mutinous crew. 
But no one was quite willing .to shut the 
entrance-gate into such select society 
from the outside while his neighbors 
still remained within. So we came to 
the wearied and worried contemplation 
of the third act. 



' Methoitpljt I was — there is no man can 



't> 



tell what — methought I was and methought 
I had ; hut man is hut a patched fool if he 
will offer to say . . . what methought I had." 

Hans von Bulow said that the mo- 
notony of respectability was driving him 
crazy. He wanted some common music, 
some exquisitely incorrect harmonies, 
some charmingly disgraceful tunes only 
sixteen rhythmical bars in length ; and 
not daring to be found listening to any- 
thing of the sort in public, had secluded 
himself with an accordion and a collec- 
tion of negro melodies. In this sense we 
proposed that our third act should be 
after Von Biilow. The Portrait, who, you 



62 All Operetta in Profile. 

remember, had escaped arrest through 
a window, followed by the inevitable 
Statues, rushed into the arms of the 
Cook Ladies' Association returning from 
a' meeting of their order. He was re- 
ceived by them with enthusiasm on 
informing them he was exhibiting a 
show of Irish beauty, and that the po- 
lice, in the English interest, were trying 
to prevent him. The Cook Ladies were 
some fifteen or twenty hobbledehoys in 
calico gowns, armed with brooms and 
banners, and singing at the top of their 
strong young voices doggerel something 
like this : — 



" If the rulers of the country 
You 're looking for, my friend, 
Just come and make a call on us, 
And your trouble 's at an end. 
For it 's Bridget rules the kitchen, 
And Pat that runs the stable ; 



An Operetta in Profile. 63 

And ain^t the two, between them, 
To whack the world just able ? 

Oh, no ! 

Just so ! 
To whack the world just able." 

All the brooms down with hearty 
thumps at the '* Oh, no ! Just so ! " 
music getting frolicsome; Cook Ladies 
change places, advance, retreat; music 
growing more furious; Cook Ladies 
spin across the stage ; music settling in- 
to the lilt of an Irish jig; Cook Ladies 
*' setting " into the jig. And very pretty 
dancing it was ; and so happy as the 
boys were about it ! while we felt the 
delicious thrills of diplomacy. I should 
suppose that great minds care nothing 
about diplomacy, and are simple, direct, 
and childlike, like Christians, — I mean 
like ideal Christians. But small minds 
get deep satisfaction from policy and 



64 An Operetta in Profile. 

forecast and cleverness and manage- 
ment; and one of our best hours in 
this business was spent in counting over 
the families and fond relatives who 
would come to see and share the radiant 
satisfaction of these young men. 

But surely Destiny is not a woman, as 
portrayed, but a man. No woman is so 
logically sarcastic ! We had reckoned 
without our Doppelgdnger, 

We — that is, the Committee — held, 
as you may suppose, daily meetings ; and 
at each one we said : *' It will be better 
not to mention this at present, but to 
keep it strictly to ourselves; the effect 
in the end will be so much better." But 
this is the age of tattle. Our news- 
papers bring the most impertinent gos- 
sip about the world and its wife, and 
we call it — news. Nothing is sacred 
from a reporter or your neighbor's opera- 



An Operetta in Profile, 65 

glass; and the only known method of 
keeping a secret is that used by the 
London ''Times." That journal held 
one fast in its clutch for six hours. But 
it went into a state of siege ! Doors 
and windows were made fast; no one 
went out or came in, and despatches 
were handed in through a window; and 
no mortal knew the why of it all but the 
editor and two men safe in his sanctum 
meanwhile. Now, that is an excellent, 
energetic method, but not possible in 
our case; so it goes without saying, 
that it was precisely as if a sieve had 
promised not to let a drop of water 
through. All our conclusions were 
handed about as small change for con- 
versational currency almost before we 
had drawn them ourselves, and as a 
consequence established itself our Dop- 
pelgdnger Committee. So regularly as 

5 



66 All Operetta in Profile. 

we met of evenings, did our Doppcl- 
gdnger sit of mornings in critical con- 
clave on our proceedings. It was like 
reading of one's self in an opposition 
newspaper to hear their comments. But 
not till the third act was actually on the 
stocks did a coalition of some of the 
most unlikely people in town oblige us 
to consider our provoking double in a 
serious light. 



" Tongue, I must put you in a butter- 
woman's mouth, and buy myself another of 
Baja^et's mule, if yon prattle me into these 
perils," 

Half-way up the middle aisle of our 
church sits a family conscious of pos- 
sessing the correct conduct and ideas 
that may be called the hall-mark of 
aristocratic race. Benevolent, kindly, 
courteous, and entirely conservative, they 
are living exponents of the great power 
of negation. They are continually 
quoted and admired for what they re- 
fuse to do, say, read, wear, and believe. 
They come in gray gowns and thick 
shoes to satin and tulle assemblies. 
They think emotion in art improper, 
and that the correct manner is formal. 



68 An Operetta in Profile. 

and proper upholstery a little ugly. 
But they condemn no one who yields 
to the popular impulse in these matters. 
They only explain to you, in all the 
pride of meekness and arrogance of 
humility, your own inferiority as you 
float down the stream with the rest of 
the rubbish, while they stand on the 
bank full of good wishes, and wash 
their hands of you. Then, too, they 
edit their own dictionary; and what 
its deflnition of proper and improper 
may be, no one can divine till he 
asks. Consequently our Committee, 
offering them an interest in the Oper- 
etta, learned that for any member of 
that family, anything enacted in the 
glaring publicity of an audience com- 
posed of their neighbors of the last 
thirty years or so, would be quite im- 
possible, — though well enough, perhaps. 



An Operetta in Profile, 6g 

for those who had no such scruples. 
And though no one could be more 
anxious that the desired sum should be 
obtained for the church, they could not 
lend even their names as an indorse- 
ment for the undertaking. In short, 
our Committee came away from that 
house very red in the face, and morally 
tingling. 



*'0h! if you borrow one another's love 
for the instant, you may, when you hear no 
more word of Pompey, return it again." 

But who could have pictured them — 
the correct, the fastidious, the faultless — 
fraternizing, united by a common bond 
of indignation, and standing on our third 
act as a platform, with the extreme 
left wing of our little community, — the 
speckled sheep so nearly black that 
one never quite knows whether to coun- 
tenance or cut them ; the Adullamites ! 
those who are avoided, discontented, 
whispered about; the intimates of Mrs. 
AduUam, and that lady herself! 

There are women spurred by a crav- 
ing egotism to ceaseless war with other 



A71 operetta in Profile. Ji 

women. Such a one was Mrs. Adullam. 
Had she been ugly, she might have 
written sour reviews and set the teeth 
of authors on edge, or painted scan- 
dalous portraits after the manner of 
Ouida ; for she was so unfortunate that 
she believed anything good, true, noble, 
whatever warms the heart and brings 
tears to the eyes, to be mere trick, 
grimace, stage-effect, copy-book, an 
outer fine polish over an inner forma- 
tion of crystals of absurdity, meanness, 
and hypocrisy ! And what else but 
sourness and malice could be the result 
of such a creed? Authors and women 
escaped, however, because thirty years 
before, by virtue of a well-cut nose and 
fine violet eyes, Mrs. Adullam had found 
the short and easy road to victory over 
other women, by the subjugation of 
every man who fancied blonde loveli- 



72 An Operetta in Profile, 

ness. Copy-books teach us how a pas- 
sion indulged becomes a tyrant. At 
fifty, urged by that same necessity of 
victory, Mrs. Adullam, like Napoleon, 
lost her head, and betook herself to 
dyes, paints, girlish slang and clothes, 
and — boys ; and supplied a great want 
in our circle. When we found ourselves 
in a '' Lord-I-thank-thee-I-am-not-as- 
other-women-are " state of gratitude, 
one could always finish the sentence to 
oneself — ** even as this " Mrs; Adullam. 
It had even been supposed impossible 
that Mrs. Adullam should be invited to 
join our club. Yet now behold her 
bronze frizz and point-de-vice tight 
jackets, in friendliest conversation with 
those hats and wraps that piqued them- 
selves on lack of style and fit, as unne- 
cessary to their wearers. The tight wrap 
and the shapeless one '' had long felt 



An Operetta in Profile. 73 

the laxity of Church discipline, and 
errors in Church management." " Mrs. 
AduUam's father was a clergyman, and 
she was sensitive on these points." '' As 
for variety-show dancing, and vulgar 
burlesque in connection with anything 
so sacred as getting money for the 
church — there indeed was need for 
instant interference. Besides, there was 
the Bishop's pastoral letter." In brief, 
Mrs. AduUam, who had hitherto re- 
sented her exclusion by playing Dop- 
pelgdnger, saw the strategic importance 
of the situation and seized it, clever 
little Wellington that she was ! And 
the most fastidious family in town, that 
had hitherto only nodded vaguely at 
Mrs. AduUam's audacious toques, recol- 
lected a text seldom mentioned out of 
church, it is so inconvenient and ill- 
fitting in every-day life : '' Judge not, 



74 -^^^ Operetta in Profile. 

that ye be not judged." Notes were 
sent between the two houses, they 
grew confidential on raihvay trains, and 
drove home together. The *' family " 
supplied the text, and Mrs. AduUam 
preached the sermon in every drawing- 
room where she was received, with her 
accustomed sarcastic comments. The 
Bishop's pastoral letter, that everybody 
took for a meaningless shred of medi- 
sevalism, was found to have an edge 
in it. We had proposed to elude it 
by calling the Operetta *' Dialogues in 
Series, with Vocal Illustrations." But 
such an evasion would only be possi- 
ble in a friendly obscurity, whereas, 
Mrs. AduUam was turning the public 
dark-lantern full upon us. A hasty sum- 
mons brought the Committee through 
a blinding snow-storm to an informal 
morning meeting at the house of our 



An Operetta in Profile. 75 

President, Mrs. Pepperton ; and that 
lady, being a woman of impulse, met us 
at the very door, a letter tragically ex- 
tended in each hand : — 

** Come in, ladies ! Pray lose no time 
in learning how your labors are appre- 
ciated. The church must have money. 
The congregation is too poor or too 
stingy to give it. Even our clergyman 
declares he will talk no more about it, 
as he came to preach Christ, and not 
debts. Somebody must earn the money 
by their wits, and we who — " here her 
English failed her. She crushed the 
letters into my hand, — for as Secretary 
of the Association it was my business 
to read them, — and flung herself into 
the nearest chair. 

The first letter was from the Ultra-Con- 
servative - AduUam - Opposition, signed 
by a number of names that obliged 



"^6 An Operetta in Profile. 

attention, — a formal protest against 
the third act of the Operetta as ** riot- 
ous and indecorous " (they had never 
seen it, knew about it only from hear- 
say) ; and as unfit to be used in 
connection with a church benefit, and 
calling attention to the Bishop's pas- 
toral letter. 

*' Riotous and indecorous ! " The 
Committee looked at each other quiver- 
ing and scarlet. Mrs. Pepperton threw 
out her hands with an impatient gesture. 

'* That is nothing ; you will find we 
are much worse than that. Read the 
other letter, and you will discover that 
we are heathen also, and that somebody 
from Bombay, or the Ghaut Mountains, 
or Siam, or Timbuctoo, for what I know, 
— some idolatrous rendezvous, — has 
arrived in order to tell us so. Read it, 
that's all; read it!" 



An Operetta in Profile. yy 

The second letter was addressed by 
Raya Yog to ** The Ladies of the Execu- 
tive Committee," and read as follows : 

Tadies, — You have been graciously pleased 
to ask my assistance in an undertaking for 
"the benefit of your Church." Pardon a 
stranger both to your religion and civilization, 
if I venture to ask, " Of which Church?" 
For to my apprehension there are two, — one 
that I do not see, but of which I hear ; one 
of which I do not hear, but that I do see, 
— the Church of Christ, and the Christian 
Church. 

The first, as I understand it, was founded 
by him you call your Saviour. A Jewish 
peasant, whose ministry among the poor and 
despised lasted only three years, ended in 
an ignominious death, and was in the opinion 
of the men of his own day a failure. Never- 
theless, though the succeeding eighteen cen- 
turies, while acknowledging his name, have 
steadily disobeyed his commandments and 
disregarded his teachings, the mere preaching 



78 A7i Operetta in Profile. 

of his word has been an energiznig force that 
has altered the whole world and opened high- 
ways into its most inaccessible fastnesses, 
physical and mental. There has been life in 
contact with the mere dry husks of his teach- 
ing, as in the bones of Elijah. It has fallen 
out as he declared, *' that man does not Uve 
by bread alone, but by every word that pro- 
ceedeth out of the mouth of God ; " and 
that which makes up the life of man to-day, 
— its activity, glory, and greatness, — found 
its motive force in the preaching of his Gos- 
pel, and has advanced with it step for step. 

According to this Gospel there are two 
kingdoms, — that of this world, whose Prince 
had nothing in Jesus (Christ, who chose his 
own lot, having power " to lay his life down 
and the power to take it up," rejected all be- 
longing to it, even a shelter) ; and the king- 
dom of heaven. Its gate is so far from that 
of this world that to enter it " a man must be 
born again." Its atmosphere is so different 
that the new man must be spiritual, — " flesh 
and blood [animal love and desires] cannot 



An Operetta in Profile. 79 

inherit it." Its time is now, its place is 
here, — "the kingdom of heaven is within 
you ; " its centre is in the antipodes of Self; 
that is, in God. Its law sets aside the 
pains and perplexities of earth, as electricity 
does time and space. It brings out succor, 
rest, and comfort from any conditions, with- 
out outward change ; as the sun-power draws 
out leaf and blossom and fruit, without level- 
ling or smoothing the heap of refuse or the 
mound of earth. It offers one model, — a 
little child; one commandment, — love, love 
that will give its whole life for another, a 
neighbor ; that is, he who needs you, — an 
enemy, a slanderer, a rival perhaps. It has 
one formula, — secrecy in almsgiving, pray- 
ing, and well doing ; one reward, — Eternal 
Life, " Because I live, ye shall live also ; " one 
promise, — " Ask, and it shall be given you." 
Is not this true ? Have I not correctly read 
your Gospel ? But does the Christian Church 
find or take " a kingdom of heaven " with it into 
the m.arket-places and counting-houses ? Does 
it admit a working faith in its business and 



8o Aft Operetta in Profile. 

politics ; or does it say something about " alle- 
gory," and keep its daily life and its religion in 
" water-tight compartments " ? Does it " love 
its neighbor as itself," when business is based 
on disadvantage of the neighbor, and society 
on the humiliation of a neighbor? Is it in 
humility that it crowds the highway, asking 
for " greetings," and scrambles for " the high- 
est places " ? Is it for secrecy that subscrip- 
tion-lists are arranged? Where can I, a 
stranger, find in the collective doings of the 
Christian Church practical proof of the con- 
viction that the real entities are unseen, and 
not of this world? 

Again, the Church of Christ names itself a 
Spiritual Church. It has one Ruler, — God ; 
" A Spirit who must be worshipped in spirit 
and truth." It has a teacher and protector, 
— a Holy Ghost. It is constantly attacked 
and accused by what one of your writers calls 
" an Unholy Ghost." It is in a state of war- 
fare, " for Christ must rule till he has put 
down all enemies under his feet." It wres- 
tles " not against flesh and blood, but against 



All Operetta in Profile. 8i 

Principalities, against Powers, against the 
Rulers of the darkness of this world, against 
spiritual wickedness in high places," — a hie- 
rarchy of infernal splendor, the Order of the 
Wisdom of the Abyss ! That is to be trium- 
phant for a time ; for " it shall manifest itself 
with signs and wonders that might deceive 
the very elect," working miracles, worshipped 
by the .world. It is not an infant hierarchy ; 
for by what occult power did the Egyptian 
magicians parallel the wonders worked by 
Moses up to a certain point ? By what occult 
power did she of Endor show the likeness 
of Samuel to the hard-hunted Saul? What 
mighty power withstood for one and twenty 
days the messenger to Daniel, — that mes- 
senger robed in whiteness of snow and dazzle 
of gold, shining from within as the burning 
of a gem in his clearness, his eyes as light- 
ning; before whom Daniel, prince, prophet, 
priest, seer, wise in occult lore, the friend of 
angels, " fell as one dead "? Who were those 
who '* withstood " while " Michael the great 
Prince of the Jews alone was with him in 

6 



82 An Operetta in Profile. 

these matters " ? What darkly wise urging was 
that, calHng the fainting Messiah to use the 
power given him of God for selfish ends, and 
so cut loose from the Divinity ; subtler yet, 
whispering him to prove that power and test 
the promises in the services of his pride? 
What is '' this Power in the Air," and its 
" Prince " against whom Christ and Paul and 
John warn all believers, — this Brotherhood 
of the Shadow that is '' to prevail against the 
saints " till withered and shrivelled " in the 
brightness of the coming of the Lord"? 
"Allegory" answers. That Christian Church, 
that is to-day in the persons of its members 
the great business manager and land-owner and 
oppressor in that " world " whose " Prince " 
wars against the Church of Christ. 

But the Word of Christ, that he declares 
" shall outlast heaven and earth," has taken 
to itself wings of flame, and has traversed the 
world, and is returning, " quick and power- 
ful as a two-edged sword," blazoned on the 
blood-red banner of the Socialist, the Anarch- 
ist, and the Infidel. These deny the Christ, 



All Operetta in Profile. 83 

but are keen to see that the great working 
force of the times is latent in that despised 
commandment of universal brotherhood. And 
as his own are mute, the very stones in the 
street are crying out against those mighty 
shrines of granite and marble, decorated with 
everything except obedience, where they have 
buried a dead Christ deaf to his poor, who 
sin and starve about his temples. And as the 
sun draws jewelled reflections from windows 
where are blazoned saints and martyrs who in 
life would not have been welcome in these 
costly buildings, and as the organ-swells fill 
all the solemn aisles and vaulted roof, there 
sounds continually a Voice, — 

" They sit before thee as my people, and 
they hear thy words, but they will not do 
them. For with their mouth they show thee 
much love, but their heart goeth after their 
covetousness. And lo ! thou art unto them 
as a very lovely song, of one that hath a 
pleasant voice, and can play well on an in- 
strument. For they hear thy words, but they 
do them not." 



84 Alt Operetta in Profile. 

His name is over the portal, indeed, but 
within are the counters of the money-chang- 
ers ; and though you can read the signs of 
the skies, you cannot read " the signs of the 
times." And to those who still adhere to the 
Church of Christ, it has happened as he fore- 
told, "and the days shall come when you 
shall desire to see one of the days of the Son 
of Man, and shall not see it." For they say 
unto you, Lo ! here, or Lo ! there, but it is 
not He ; and even as he asks, " should he 
at his coming find faith on the earth," do you 
echo the sad question, for he is rejected of 
this generation. 

Compassionate then the embarrassment of 
a foreigner confused between creeds and 
practice, and kindly explain. Is your under- 
taking for the benefit of the Church of Christ ? 
Does it invite the help of the obscure and 
neglected, and propose to delight not only 
your friends, but the helpless and the sad ; 
those hurt in heart and sore in soul ; those 
who know pleasure only by report ? Or is it 
for a Christian church, for the decoration and 



An Operetta in Profile. 85 

repair of some religious club-house, by way 
of coaxing the needed sum from people who 
are anxious to balance their heavenly book- 
keeping at the smallest possible cost, because 
of their earthly ledgers ? 

Yours most respectfully, 

Raya Yog. 



" She 's a good sign, but I have seen small 
reflection of her wit." 

" There ! " cried Mrs. Pepperton, en- 
ergetically throwing out her hands as I 
finished the reading of Raya Yog's let- 
ter; ''there!" and again words failed 
her. To be called " riotous and inde- 
corous," and Pharisees ! To be bated 
by a Mrs. Adullam and a copper-col- 
ored, or (if one is to be particular to a 
shade) olive-tinted, idolater, who no 
doubt said unintelligible prayers to some 
gold or ebony image with a hideous, 
leering face, and who believed childish 
absurdities about sacred tortoises and 
Buddha. A man to whom we had been 
condescendingly explaining, ever since 



A /I Operetta in Profile. 87 

our evil stars brought him among us. 
Would you not call the Operetta rather a 
malicious jinn than a fairy godmother, 
playing a diabolical game of chess, and 
offering us check at every other move? 
Still, whether godmother or malicious 
jinn, none of us were disposed to aban- 
don our Operetta. We were in love 
with our own scheme, and, like all love, 
it was stimulated by opposition. It was 
agreed, of course, that no notice should 
be taken of Raya Yog's singular and 
most impertinent letter. No doubt, in 
his ignorance of our language, he had 
not the least idea of what he was saying. 
The protest was a more serious business, 
and there was a certain relief in feeling 
that for that we could hold our author 
responsible. She had never been thor- 
oughly approved among us. To begin, 
there was something in her very appear- 



88 An Operetta in Profile. 

ance different from others, — an outward 
show no doubt of what was within (I 
mean her pecuhar and original think- 
ing), that imposed upon strangers as an 
air of distinction. They attributed it to 
a fine estate, an uncle in the Senate, or 
a grandfather at least. And of course 
when it was discovered that she was the 
mere nobody that she is, people re- 
sented their involuntary deference. Be- 
sides, her mind might be said to be a 
positive inn for ideas that had their 
capital in the next world, and were 
hopelessly out at elbows in this. In 
addition, she would never leave Truth in 
her well. She was always for having 
the goddess out in the light of day, and 
was inevitably repaid by such blows and 
bruises as must always fall to that 
mortal dwarf who will walk with an im- 
mortal giant. Never too popular, and 



An Operetta in Profile, 89 

having no following to make any one 
afraid, she was In the natural course of 
the Libretto, like Fate, made to bear 
the blame of every one's failures and dis- 
appointments. She had never been al- 
lowed to select the dramatis personcs, 
or offer opinions; but the public held 
her accountable for every invidious criti- 
cism and selection. In retaliation she 
had been specially omitted from lunches 
and neighborly gatherings, and no Arc- 
tic explorer could find himself more 
thoroughly frozen In or out, than she 
had been in the Pepperton drawing- 
rooms. And now the Committee felt 
itself at liberty to turn on her in a united 
glare ; for was it not her fault that they 
had been called " riotous and indeco- 
rous "? And Mrs. Pepperton, as spokes- 
woman, was just opening her mouth, 
when the offender froze the words on 



90 An Operetta in Profile, 

her lips with a roll of manuscript. A 
fresh roll ! A new third act. Some 
muttering, some hint of the intended 
protest had reached her only the after- 
noon before, and her quick wit had 
caught at the truth. She had written all 
night. The Broom-dance was swept 
away ; there was no Broom-dance. The 
Committee might write at once to the 
** Protestants," and in courteous phrases 
give them to understand that the Broom- 
dance had already been relinquished as 
** unsuitable ; " and the third act was to 
take place in a young ladies' seminary ! 
In fact, the Hobbledehoy Brigade was to 
be held in reserve for a fourth act, and 
in place of the Cook Ladies' Associa- 
tion, the Portrait would take refuge in 
the Chiff-Chaff Seminary. There he 
would present the Statues as his coun- 
try cousins, for whom he desired lessons 



Aji Operetta in Profile. 91 

in deportment. Once more the Pepper- 
ton's working carriage made its omnibus 
rounds, and stood before the different 
doors in town, while eager neighbors 
watched its shabby green linings and 
cynical coachman in quivering anxiety ; 
and ladies said to each other afterwards, 
with attempted indifference, " that Mrs. 
Pepperton had called, and that Jane or 
Marie was invited to act as a Chiff-Chaff 
girl, — if that were the name ; it was 
something like that, at any rate." The 
daughters of their mothers were equally 
well satisfied. Young ladyhood has re- 
straints as well as compensations. The 
length of one's hair, the turn of an ankle, 
the grace of a jump or a skip, all kept 
severely secret by every well-bred young 
woman, may be quite innocently dis- 
played, — put the clock back to girlhood, 
and the young lady in Chiff-Chaff Semi- 



92 A71 Operetta in Profile. 

nary. And fifteen girls, who knew 
where to keep their feet under their 
short skirts, and within what bounds 
to shriek, giggle, and skip, made such 
a pretty show of dimples, bloom, and 
archness that it was already counted as 
the feature of the Operetta; while a 
general burst of laughter received the 
dialogue in the deportment class, that 
was already winging its way about in 
town talk. As thus : — 

"■ How should one cut a shabby ac- 
quaintance with perfect politeness?" 

*' By a faint smile, that grazes the 
shabby forehead, and then slants away, 
over the heads and shoulders of those 
nearest." 

Class proceeds to illustrate the '' faint- 
ness " of the smile, and to *' slant " it 
correctly. 

** What is the first principle of deport- 
ment?" 



A7t operetta in Profile. 93 

" To call attention to one's gown." 

Class proceeds to pose with a view to 
the '' gowns." 

" What is the second principle of 
deportment?" 

" To assert one's superiority." 

** Superiority to what, young ladies? " 

" To everything." 

" Precisely how is this best accom- 
plished?" 

" By a stolid deafness and consistent 
bhndness." 

''Exactly; the class will now recite 
the creed of the deaf people who have 
ears, and the blind people who have 
eyes." 

Class all together : *' I believe in being 
deaf, dumb, and blind to all strangers, 
landscapes, chance remarks, works of 
art, interesting incidents, and ordinary 
civilities of life, on all streets, railways, 



94 ^^^ Operetta in Profile, 

and steamboats, and in all hotels, thea- 
tres, and picture-galleries, and every- 
where in general." 

Class proceeds to illustrate '' assertion 
of superiority." 

"■ Very good ! Now, young ladies," 
and here Madame Chiff-Chaff turns her 
cold eyes on the Statues, *' there is 
something too free, too wild, too — too 
— too natural about your demeanor. 
You keep your feet far apart. Pray 
observe. You should in your gait try 
to convey the idea that a woman moves 
about on castors and without joints. 
Your arms are too limp. Hold them 
more closely at the top, and stick them 
sharply out at the elbows. So ! Shorten 
your steps, if you please ! Stiffen your- 
selves ! Try to give an impression of no 
limbs and general helplessness ! Class, 
attention ! The Chiff-Chaff young ladies 



An Operetta in Profile. 95 

will now walk in single file before these 
young ladies — from the country — and 
give them an object-lesson in style." 

Class proceeds to give the object-les- 
son in '' style." 

This dialogue required so little men- 
tal effort, and could be applied in so 
many ill-natured v/ays, that it came up, 
like Jack's Beanstalk, in every lady's 
parlor. But at the same time there was 
a positive explosion of indignation. The 
withdrawal of the Cook Ladies and their 
broom-dance set free the Genii in the 
bottle we had just been made to open. 
Our Hobbledehoys had been captivated 
by the rush and jollity, the rhythmic 
stampings and " fetching " chorus, of 
the Cook Ladies' Association. They 
were flattered to be of use and impor- 
tance, and were pleased perhaps with 
the novelty of a real interest outside of 



96 All Opei'etta in Profile. 

billiard-rooms, bar-rooms, and green- 
rooms. Then young people have, be- 
sides, an unhealthy appetite for unripe, 
indigestible things, like grievances, and 
our boys were prepared to fight for this 
one as if it had been a Stuart or a Bour- 
bon. They formed themselves into a 
" Society of United Brooms," wearing a 
silver broom as a badge, and were loud 
and bitterly witty on the subject. And 
as the ill-omened Genii we had just un- 
bottled would have it, at that time the 
town fell heir to a scandal. 



'' Will it serve for any model to build 
mischief on ? " 

As one takes children to visit a me- 
nagerie and stare through the bars at 
Hons, cobras, and other venomous forms 
of unhappiness, so did an official promi- 
nent in the Church convoy a neophyte, 
a young Daniel not yet come to judg- 
ment, through the whirling, glittering 
maze of a great public ball in New 
York. While thus engaged he beheld 
there another well-known face, another 
suburban youth, unescorted, with no offi- 
cial guardian angel, — there on his own 
responsibility, and enjoying himself com- 
pletely ! Very likely the horror-struck 
official talked in his sleep ; and his wife 
— told nobody, but she radiated it 

7 



98 An Operetta in Profile. 

throughout her circle. Perhaps she 
could not have retained the secret within 
her system with safety to herself. A 
member of the ultra-fastidious-family- 
who-had-protested thought it a duty to 
inform the mother of the " unescorted " 
young man, etc. Everything hooked 
into everything else, like the *' House 
that Jack built," till the whole circle 
about that young man took fire and 
blew up ; and the fastidious family 
cut the unescorted young man on the 
street, because it was a duty to save 
their own olive-branches from the upas- 
like influence of the unescorted one. 

But as all the town, except those 
most concerned, knew, those '* olive- 
branches " also attended the fatal ball in 
New York, also unescorted; only — the 
prominent church-member had not hap- 
pened to see them. 



An Operetta in Profile. 99 

The gossips were as busy and merry 
as crows. The *' united brooms " com- 
posed locally impertinent and transpar- 
ently mystic songs and catches. The 
severe party's Christianity seemed to 
have risen to the surface and turned 
sour, like cream in a thunder-storm. 
Mr. Skeggs, by steady perseverance, 
could scarcely collect and retail his im- 
proved edition of half the comments in 
town. It was spring-time for him. His 
sallow face wore a look of positive ani- 
mation. And as his light top-coat 
twinkled in and out of innumerable 
doors he was happy as a sparrow with 
a straw or an end of thread. The insin- 
uated scandal concerning the ** olive- 
branches " who attended the ball " un- 
escorted," and the severity of certain 
persons who would do better to turn 
the microscope on their own fields, gave 



lOO An Operetta in Profile. 

flavor to the dry theological discussions 
about the Bishop's pastoral letter, when 
applied to ** dialogues in series with 
vocal illustrations." And when it is re- 
membered that an Iliad of what each 
lady might know or suspect about other 
members of the '' United Brooms " was 
also in order, it will be seen at once that 
formal calls became for the time endura- 
ble, while we quaked behind the Operetta 
that had opened the gates for this deluge 
of mud. 

There were also very special results 
from the selection of a Madame Chiff- 
Chaff. 

The music in duos and trios, with 
pretty little marching and tripping meas- 
ures, contained also a solo for Madame 
Chiff-Chaff, requiring the best voice in 
the Operetta, a sense of humor, and a 
married lady, as it was probable if this 



All Operetta in Profile. lOi 

prominent role should be offered to a 
young lady that the other girls would 
resign in a body. The results that fol- 
lowed her nomination were unexpected, 
and came far afield, like the straggling 
tendrils of Virginia creeper, that, start- 
ing from a root on the southern side of 
our house, crept under ground, beneath 
piazzas and past steps and walls, into 
the light of day on the northwestern 
angle of the building. 



''Ay! an you had an eye behind you, 
you might see more detraction at your heels 
than fortune before you." 

Hitherto our Operetta had man- 
ceuvred within what one may call the 
aristocratic section of the town, — if any- 
thing American can be aristocratic. 
For what makes up the woof and warp 
of an aristocracy under the Declaration 
of Independence? Or why are we 
trying to grow this impossible exotic 
under glass? Abroad, where families 
date, like rats, from the Crusades, or 
at the very least have neighbored 
each other for the last seven hundred 
years or so, American aristocracy is 
a ridiculous mushroom. Here it has 



An Operetta in Profile. 103 

no record, no history, no Debrett of its 
own, and can have none. It is relative, 
differing in almost every county. It is 
always an open question, and forever in 
Chancery. Get yourself recognized at 
home ; and fifty miles away, perhaps, no- 
body knows who you are, and you are 
flatly denied. For example. Many years 
ago a New England Brahmin was travel- 
ling for several days on a Mississippi 
steamboat where his name carried no con- 
viction with it. The Brahmin, as is often 
the manner of Brahmins, was small, dry, 
and insignificantly ugly. The Brahmin- 
ess, his wife, on the contrary, was what 
maybe called a sumptuous beauty, — de- 
licious flesh and blood, in soft yellowish 
white and softer rose-petal tints, with 
dark eyes full of an inward fire ; a woman 
withal of statuesque and chilling dig- 
nity. The Brahmins took their caste with 



104 ^^^ Operetta in Profile, 

them. They sat apart, ate apart. In view 
of all this mystery and seclusion, of a 
couple in such startling contrast as this 
so-called husband and wife, that explo- 
sive virtue, that, like carbonic-acid gas, 
is everywhere in the atmosphere, first 
smouldered, and then blazed; and in 
consideration of the insulted modesty of 
the other passengers, at the first landing 
the Brahmins were requested to with- 
draw. This was a Brahmin of Brahmins ! 
And in a land where such horrors are 
possible, our aristocracy must always 
be like our divorce laws, — recognized in 
one State, and illegal in another. Nor is 
this all. As all Americans are already 
free and equal, we are burdened as we 
stand with a right to be maintained, — an 
everlasting equation, in which one is al- 
ways trying to learn to what this equality 
is equal. If Americans are also to climb 



Ajt Operetta in Profile. 105 

the ever-climbing wave of pedigree, in 
order to speak reasonably about the 
thing at all, there should be a court, in 
constant session, on the claims, laws, 
precedents, and definitions of an Ameri- 
can aristocracy. At present, if a man 
achieves money, he sets up a carriage, a 
coach-dog, and a coat of arms together ; 
buys them all three. Aristocracy is only 
a euphuism for money, without preju- 
dice from any genuine claims of descent, 
as I can soon show you. 

There is in one of our smaller streets 
a house where you can step directly 
into the year 1776. In the hall hangs a 
brownish picture in a dingy frame. It 
is the portrait of a man who signed the 
Declaration of Independence, and filled 
so large a niche in the gallery of his 
epoch that novels of his day generally 
introduce his name, to give the proper 



io6 Ajt Operetta in Profile. 

verisimilitude to their story. Here, too, 
are chairs once belonging to Marie An- 
toinette ; miniatures of members of her 
court ; bits even of that luckless woman's 
handiwork, given in personal friendship 
to men and women of a generation not 
more courteous or honorable than their 
descendants of to-day. Yet these people 
live in seclusion. I have even been as- 
sured that they are " common," — that is, 
poor; also, that a certain easy, gliding 
grace of one of these ladies was much 
out of keeping in her little parlor. " Out 
of keeping " for the children of men and 
women who led a life of mark in English 
annals ; who shone dazzling at Versailles ; 
who shared the retreats to the little 
Trianon; who helped with heart and 
arm to uphold the young fortunes of 
our Republic ! But for a young lady 
whose grandmother smoked a pipe, and 



An Operetta in Profile. 107 

whose father, being named Munday, has 
just set up the family motto in blue 
and gold, Sic transit gloria miindi, with 
all the appropriate heraldic beasts, — 
how well, I say, in the mind of our critic, 
this '' easy grace" would have suited, 
how entirely in keeping ! were it a thing 
to be bought, instead of an affair of inheri- 
tance. So if, according to Olivia's Fool, 
''What is, is," it is plain that our pedi- 
grees should be found in the money ar- 
ticle in the ''Herald," and are as variable 
as anything in an almanac. And there 
would be much less confusion if papers 
of aristocracy were made out for the cur- 
rent year, giving notice of those on their 
promotion and of those just counted 
out, — also local particulars and defini- 
tions; for in some sections nothing 
more is needed to achieve aristocracy 
than a glass window, in others a White- 



io8 All Operetta in Profile. 

chapel cart, in others a yacht, or a 
cottage at Newport. And taking it all 
together, was Raya Yog so very wrong 
about his two Churches? Since what 
can the kingdom of heaven, where the 
greatest hath the humility of a little 
child, hold in common with thinking 
of this order? 



" You wear out a good wholesome fore- 
noon in hearing a course between an orange- 
wife and a fosset-seller , and then adjourn 
the controversy of three pence to a second 
day of audience," 

However, as I was about to say, 
there is as much butcher, baker, and 
candlestick-maker among us as else- 
where, and the sort of circumstance 
called '' unforeseen " is sure to have a 
root somewhere in the grocer's zone. 
Now, almost in the centre of our town 
lies a broad street, clearly intended for 
a fashionable quarter, that for some oc- 
cult reason has failed, — like a beauty of 
a wealthy marriage. And, spite of am- 
bitious buildings, you are told " that no- 



no An Operetta in Profile. 

body lives there that anybody knows." 
This crushing social edict cuts ofif its 
inhabitants from us, and they might 
almost as well be the red and blue fish 
in the Lake of the Buried City for any- 
thing that we know of them. Inter- 
cepting this domestic Sahara are grassy 
roads, catching pleasant glimpses of 
curving shore and sparkling bay. On 
these have sprung up a mushroom crop 
of houses with so much Queen Anne 
and so little length and width that it 
is difficult to consider them seriously, 
not as toys, but as habitations. They 
are at once so fine and so flimsy that 
they have an air of being bought in 
a lot at some bargain counter. The 
paint is haggard ; the walls and win- 
dows are out of line; the ornamental 
saw-work is impossible ; the stained 
glass is unreasonable; there is a tradi- 



A?i Operetta in Profile. in 

tion attached to the cellar about India- 
rubber boots regularly supplied as a 
part of the kitchen furniture. These 
streets make up a Debatable Land, where 
side by side with people styled " com- 
mon " and '' impossible " live those who 
are neither quite in society nor abso- 
lutely out of it. The dividing-lines are 
so faintly outlined between that the 
best social naturalist could hardly have 
explained the selection that omitted one 
and invited her neighbor. Between 
those liable to be occasionally included 
and often snubbed, and those never rec- 
ognized at all, there is plenty of friction 
and dissatisfaction, — all the more be- 
cause, strangely enough, the local edi- 
tors and attorneys have hitherto always 
been found in the "■ impossible " ranks. 

In the very centre of this region lived 
Madame Chiff-Chaff; and Rome was 



112 An Operetta in Profile, 

never shaken by fiercer contending pas- 
sions than was the district around her 
by the news of her appointment. Mrs. 
Chiff-Chaff possessed the requisite voice 
and sense of humor, and was also in 
that essential state of marriage ; it was 
said, besides, that she was of an excellent 
family. Why excellent, nobody knew, 
for nobody knew the family; but, like 
that other unknown quantity, x, every- 
thing is argued from it. This unknown 
family was also cultured, for some one 
belonging to it had once written a book. 
Had a woman been called a cook be- 
cause she made a pie, the next question 
would have been as to the goodness of 
the pie ; but as it was only a book, we 
were not so critical. For the rest, Mrs. 
Chiff-Chaff herself was stout, rosy, 
comely, clever, and executive, whatever 
the occasion, whether a church fair, a 



Aft Operetta in Profile. 113 

funeral, or a wedding; and coming to 
be gradually adopted among us like an 
Idea, carriages from the Upper End of 
the town were to be seen more and 
more frequently before her door, — to 
the bitter discomfiture of her neighbors, 
specially of those across the way. 

Here lived the local attorney (a sal- 
low man, with that hungry craving for 
importance that some people call am- 
bition) ; also his wife, a bride of six 
months, and his father-in-law, Jeffries 
Harwell, — a famous name in Southern 
society half a century ago. The Jeffries- 
Harwell duels, their embassies, their 
love-making, their horses, their lineage 
dating back to the crusaders' tombs, — 
were they not all in the current gossip 
of their day? Their old manor-house, 
built with bricks brought from England, 
still stands, though no longer in the 

8 



114 ^^^ Operetta in Profile. 

possession of the family. There are 
also some wonderful sideboards and 
silver in existence, on which you will 
find their crest and initial; and the fa- 
mous Harwell emeralds are, if I mistake 
not, at Tiffany's. Sixty years ago a 
Jeffries Harwell married the most beau- 
tiful woman in Philadelphia, — a city of 
beautiful women; but as such she is 
still remembered, together with the 
Harwell plate, lace, beauty, breeding, 
pride, folly, and fierce, impracticable 
temper. Also at the court of Na- 
poleon HI. figured a Harwell of such 
finished manners that his American ex- 
traction, if not forgotten, was forgiven. 
But acres vanished like mists, stocks ex- 
haled like essence. Real estate is surely 
the most unreal and delusive of posses- 
sions; riches have wings; and without 
a setting of gold, of what value is even 



An Operetta in Profile. 115 

an ancestor with the cross of a crusader 
on his shoulder? Nothing remained to 
Jeffries Harwell but that hypochondria 
hereditary in such families like gout, by 
which a man imagines that he is — not 
of glass, but of consequence, when he 
is shabby and out at elbows, and hustled 
by everybody. The attorney found his 
wife, who was twenty-nine years old and 
looked seventeen (a very wide-eyed, in- 
nocent seventeen), in a dingy lodging- 
house, where she managed the dinners 
and the bills for her father. Her sleepy 
blue eyes were tolerably well open to 
the chances of the life in which she 
found herself. She accepted the meagre 
attorney in exchange for her dimples, 
her " fetching" foreign airs, and trick of 
speech (she had been educated abroad), 
as a fair bargain. He was a lifelong 
quittance for herself and father for the 



ii6 An Operetta in Profile. 

butcher's bill and the rent. Having a 
correct appreciation of her own attrac- 
tions and tact, she thought of the sub- 
urban town, in which a home waited for 
her, as already conquered. Like other 
clever people, she underrated the resist- 
ing power of dulness. No one had ever 
heard of the Jeffries Harwells ; and had 
they done so, it was like finding the Koh- 
t-noor tied up in a tramp's handkerchief. 
What unmentionable reasons could have 
induced a Jeffries Harwell to marry the 
local attorney? She attended the church 
reception, and the iron-clad, duty-doing 
ladies who addressed her were consider- 
ably startled by her readiness and her 
repartees ; the air of equality, even con- 
descension ; the clever anecdotes, the 
society style, the self-possession, of the 
attorney's wife. It was whispered that 
she had been an actress, or a ballet- 



An Operetta in Profile. iiy 

dancer even. The Upper End carriages 
never came to her door. The butcher's 
wife, on her left, was of the opinion that 
there was more starch than Christianity 
in the Upper End, and strongly advised 
her to join the other church. The edi- 
tor's wife, on her right, was of the same 
opinion. Commonplace women, all 
wrong about their hair, their skirts, and 
their grammar, nodded at her distantly, 
or overlooked her altogether. Her wit, 
her voice, and her dramatic cleverness 
were all needed in the Operetta ; but she 
had not even been asked to join the 
club. She was filled with contempt- 
uous rage; that bitter schoolmistress, 
Envy, kept her all day at moral subtrac- 
tion, — subtracting the world's estimate 
of herself from her own estimate of her- 
self, and finding the world in debt to 
her for a large remainder; subtracting 



Ii8 An Operetta in Profile. 

the actual value of her neighbors from 
the world's over-estimate of them, and 
smiling sardonically at the huge dis- 
crepancy. She was a woman of force, 
a woman to make herself felt. Besides, 
such a state of affairs is contagious ; a 
malarial mist of scandal filled and pois- 
oned the entire neighborhood, and from 
thence began imperceptibly to make a 
deadly way into a higher social plane. 



*' Look you! the worm is not to he 
trusted hut in the keeping of wise people ; 
for indeed there is no goodness in the 
worm," 

In the heart of the town there is a large 
shop-window filled with repulsive fashion- 
plates, giving, as they are doubtless in- 
tended to do, painful notions of what not 
to wear. This suggests, in its own dreary 
way, a mantua-maker within. Here the 
Upper End ladies bring their old gowns 
to be picked out and re-made, and the 
smart waitresses and cooks their Sunday 
gowns. In addition, these last relate 
what they suppose they know, and think 
they see, of the family life of their em- 
ployers. The mantua-maker, as middle- 



I20 Aji Operetta in Profile. 

man, retails this interesting information 
to those ladies who are of the Guild of 
St.Gossip. Also, the cooks and waitresses 
aforesaid take home their spoils to such 
of their mistresses as will hear them. 
The mantua-maker is, besides, on terms 
of humble intimacy with the butcher's 
wife and other ladies of that neighbor- 
hood, and attends all their little festivi- 
ties as an assistant, waiting in kitchen or 
dining-room, ready for an emergency. 
Through her there is, as you can see, 
an ever-open channel of communication 
between the non-visiting sections, — a 
northwest passage about which there 
is unhappily no difficulty. So poor a 
creature she looks, so foolish, fluttered, 
and cowardly, it is hard to take her 
seriously. Yet, poor as she sits there, 
shrilly talking, she has cost a good man 
his good name. Sitting there in the attor- 



An Operetta in Profile. 121 

ney's kitchen, it was her hand that wrote 
the Mene-Mene-Tekel-Upharsin on the 
walls of the finest house in town, whose 
inhabitants did not visit the attorney's 
wife. The scandal mist was rising. In 
venomous twistings and turnings, it was 
creeping in at the Upper End. What 
the town had always known of Mr. Pep- 
perton was that his gates stood wide 
open, literally for all. The wharf in his 
pleasure-grounds was filled of summer 
evenings by people who had no water 
outlook and sunset view of their own. 
His carriages were omnibuses. His boats 
took out half the town. To him the town 
owed its best street, and industrial activ- 
ity. The church was a matter between 
him and the congregation. He took 
three fourths of its debt and worries, 
and the congregation, with much grumb- 
ling, accepted the rest. When his ten- 



122 All Operetta in Profile. 

ants were straitened, and pushed into 
financial corners, he forgot rent-day, — 
sometimes many rent-days in succes- 
sion. And wherever there was sorrow, 
his family first knocked at the door. 

What the town now heard of Mr. Pep- 
perton — in cautious whispers, of course 
— was that he took the bread of the or- 
phan, and, after the manner of Ahab, 
was just about to add a widow's land to 
his own great possessions. The rumor 
was so poisonous to whoever touched 
it that it crawled and wriggled from one, 
door to another, finding none to take it 
in. Still it lived and lurked and crawled. 

The widow who owned the Naboth's 
vineyard in question bore a close men- 
tal resemblance to one of our hens, who 
sat for weeks on a turnip, threw all the 
food away from her chickens in the vio- 
lence of her scratchings, and mothered a 



An Operetta in Profile. 123 

three-months brood with that hysterical 
anxiety considered correct by every hen 
of fine sensibiHty. Some spiteful chance 
persuaded her that she needed our local 
attorney. Men, especially attorneys, are 
apt to rate their own services highly. 
Therefore he gave her for signature a 
deed that transferred her entire estate 
to him. Having, after the manner of her 
kind, signed the deed without reading it, 
she filled the air with weak wailings. 
The generous Pepperton blood came up 
at her appeal, and Mr. Pepperton headed 
an attempt to wrench from the attorney 
the widow's land. It was the election 
period. As a single energy in Nature 
develops things the most opposite, so 
there is a similar unity in daily life. You 
find the same faces in opposition on all 
the different lines of business, politics, 
theology, and society. The widow was 



124 Ajt Operetta in Profile. 

warned and advised well nigh out of 
any sense she had. "• Mr. Pepperton 
simply wished to add her acres to his 
own. If she gave him, as was necessary, 
a power of attorney, she would be rob- 
bing and destroying her children and her- 
self" The widow swayed helplessly, this 
way and that. *' She was sure she could 
not tell what to think. Perhaps they 
were right ! She could not see herself 
why Mr. Pepperton and those fine people 
who never called on her were so inter- 
ested for her now." Scandal is the work- 
ing-beam of politics, and the attorney's 
political friends were as anxious about 
the Ahab and Naboth rumor as he 
could be. They watched it as if it was 
a beloved child between life and death. 
Only, who could handle it? 



"It is proved already that you are little 
better than false knaves, and it will go near 
to he thought so shortly," 

At this juncture Mary McGinnIs 
bought a new gown, — a green gown with 
a pattern in embroidery. It required 
much fitting and consideration, because 
it was intended to poison life for the 
upstairs girl and to bring the coachman 
to terms. During the trying on and 
putting off, Mary, who was waitress in 
an Upper End house, detailed to the 
mantua-maker how her master at din- 
ner had repeated the widow and orphan 
story, describing it as a wicked and evi- 
dent falsehood, and requiring his wife 
and daughters to stamp on it and crush 



126 An Operetta in Profile. 

it out if it reared a head in their pres- 
ence. That afternoon, in the attorney's 
kitchen, the mantua-maker brought out 
the waitress's story, among other items 
from her budget. The attorney's wife 
heard, and her eyes flashed. '' My 
dear ! " she said to the attorney that 
night, *' there is no more honest, cau- 
tious, and soHd man in town ; he is one 
of the best citizens in the place. Since 
he told the story, give it on his 
authority y 

So indorsed, the story took air. Does 
any one doubt? I declare positively I 
am relating a fact. The story not only 
took air, it took the train. It was met 
in New York business circles; it trav- 
elled West; it even crossed the Atlan- 
tic. The local paper ached to publish 
it appropriately, but dared not. But bar- 
rooms and billiard-rooms were under no 



An Operetta in Profile. 127 

such restraint. In vain the man who 
had talked to his wife in the privacy of 
his own dining-room protested, contra- 
dicted, and explained. People were 
now busy with the reasons that had 
brought this new David to covet the 
widow's ewe lamb. " He was embar- 
rassed; he had over-bought, over-built, 
extended his operations too widely." 
No one knew just how; but it sounded 
business like, and everybody repeated it 
in a knowing way. Had Mr. Pepper- 
ton been a weaker man, of fewer re- 
sources and less nerve, he would also 
have been a ruined man ; for there was 
some such rush on him and his opera- 
tions as on a suspected bank. It is a 
strange sensation for a just man to know 
that there are very many people who 
firmly believe, and will always believe, 
in some impossible guilt of his, so that an 



128 An Operetta in Profile. 

angel out of Revelation could scarcely 
undeceive them. But it is, alas ! no rare 
experience. The scandal-mists wreathed 
and curled above the Pepperton roof- 
tree and many more besides. And now 
if it were not the mantua-maker who 
called the figures for this dreadful Ca 
ira dance, who did? And if the attor- 
ney's wife had not been denied all share 
in our Operetta, would that subtly se- 
lected Ace of Sponsorship have been 
thrown on the table? And if not, would 
the Pepperton credit have been so 
strained, and the Pepperton character 
been so cruelly smirched? 

All this transpired, as one might say, 
on parallel lines with the Operetta. No 
one analyzed the matter; there was a 
vague impression of a violent outbreak 
of scandal among us, as if the epidemic 
had been scarlatina or small-pox. " As 



An Operetta in Profile. 129 

the north wind driveth away rain, so 
doth an angry countenance a backbiting 
tongue." But no such wholesome wind 
swept our air clean of germs of malice 
and suspicion, and silenced evil tongues. 
There was no loss of caste for the scan- 
dal-mongers. All our men and women 
who disapprove of scandal listened to 
it nevertheless. They always do. Who 
has ever escaped from " the scourge of 
the tongue " ? There was a warrior of 
old times who faced a giant and a Phi- 
listine army with undaunted composure, 
but who cried out in anguish *^ that he 
had heard the slander of many, and that 
fear was on every side." Indeed, I 
am learning to wonder at the anxieties 
and agonies about reputation ; for who, 
pray, possesses one that will pass cur- 
rent in all quarters, and what hold can 
there be on a thing that is blown about 

9 



130 An Operetta in Profile. 

by the breath of a mouth? And, O 
Fairy Godmother ! with such a storm in 
our horizon, why was there no warning, 
and never an umbrella of thy providing? 
Over what rough and stony ways art 
thou trundling our Pumpkin, and what 
strange and unwelcome passengers are 
we not to take on board? For myself 
personally, it was of course no season 
for glass slippers; the fairy prince 
needed rather a pair of scales to weigh 
out words and smiles to each of forty 
young women, each ready at shortest 
notice to pull somebody's hair. Still, 
there is a silent speech that is electric, 
subtle, and convincing, and nothing in 
that language came to me from the Por- 
trait: he only accepted me like the 
other peculiarities of the Operetta. But, 
as you may remember, in view of that 
possible closing of our domestic theatre, 



All Operetta in Profile. 131 

I was setting traps, not for Cupid, but 
Hymen, — two very different deities. 
My fairy prince was hunting nothing; 
he was strictly indifferent. Let x repre- 
sent matrimony. Have you not often 
observed in such cases that if one 
party is Steadily Determined, and the 
other Lazily Indifferent, the equation is 
apt, give it time enough, to result like 

this : — 

S. D. = L. L + ,r? 

Precisely ! I placed my trust in the 
two P.'s, — Propinquity and Persistency, 
and postponed personal for public 
perplexities. These grew thicker and 
thicker in our way, as though they 
had a blossoming season, and we had 
lighted in the middle of it. And still 
no one turned a seeing eye on the 
Debatable Ground or the attorney's 
wife. 



132 All Operetta in Profile, 

That lady had arrived at much popu- 
larity in her immediate neighborhood. 
It followed that ladies were constantly 
coming to her of mornings with bits of 
crochet and hemming and knitting, when 
she was not going to them with other 
bits of crochet and hemming and knit- 
ting; all solitary thinking and reflection 
being understood, in feminine circles, to 
be uncomfortable, and what is called 
lonesome. There are, of course, circles 
and circles. In some it is thought de- 
sirable to give off impressions from cer- 
tain books, and these are called '* ideas." 
And the going over of these books and 
their contents constitutes a literary con- 
versation or a literary person, — just as 
the naming of the tools in a chest would 
make a man a carpenter, and the hand- 
ling and cataloguing of models and 
marble would constitute him a sculptor. 



A7t operetta in Profile. 133 

In the Debatable Circle the talk was 
not of books, but of the relative weight 
of babies and virtues of sewing-ma- 
chines, the only correct recipe for certain 
preserves and confections, and the one 
infallible method of dealing with that 
arch-enemy of the human race, that in- 
carnation of original sin, the servant- 
girl. This constitutes housewifery, as 
the talking of books, culture. And the 
identical feature in both circles is that 
necessity for an unceasing twittering 
and a constant rushing about; so that 
in the attorney's house the neighbors 
might be said to ebb and flow daily in 
a regular social tide. 

Consequently, the attorney's wife was 
among the first to discuss the impending 
cataclysm in the , Presbyterian Church, 
and to get the rudder-cords of that labor- 
ing bark well within her grasp. Conse- 



134 -^^^ Operetta in Profile, 

quently again, unlikely as it seems, the 
Pumpkin was derailed, the Operetta 
overturned, and that scandalous Ace 
took all our tricks. 



'' I am for the house with the narrow 
gate, which I take to he too little for pomps 
to enter," 

As we have all read, the modern Pil- 
grims to the Heavenly City travel by 
express trains, escaping the difficulties 
of the Slough of Despond. Apolyon 
himself, who is generally conceded to 
have been much misunderstood, is the 
engine-driver, and there are many and 
constant improvements on this important 
route. For example, Giant Despair, a 
very civil, amiable old gentleman, is 
now the conductor. No pauses are 
made at the House Beautiful, where 
they are completely behind the times, 
and the Valley of Humiliation is avoided. 



136 A 71 operetta in Profile. 

But stop-over tickets may be had for the 
magnificent parks of Pope and Pagan. 
The last particularly show trees of co- 
lossal size and fabulous age, boulevards 
of wonderful extent and beauty, and 
mountains crowned by a marvellous 
series of towers, ascended by spiral 
stairways said to have been hewn out by 
the Jinn in pre-historic times. Guide- 
books are on all the trains. There are 
Pullman-cars for the wealthier class, 
each provided with a Wall Street ticker, 
and in instant communication with every 
market in the world. There is a sliding 
Juggernaut judgment-seat for crushing 
one's neighbor ; also thimbles and yard- 
sticks, bearing different ecclesiastical 
stamps, for measuring the Universe and 
the designs of its Maker, — all of which 
is the more desirable, as the journey 
itself lacks interest. The road runs be- 



A 71 operetta in Profile. 137 

tween walls of rock that tower on each 
side, shutting out the sunlight of heaven 
and all notion of the surrounding coun- 
try; and through the entire route the 
light is supplied by an ingenious inven- 
tion patented by Apolyon. Thus it fell 
out that a passenger on this train, who 
had increased greatly both in wealth 
and in consequence in the Presbyterian 
Church, tried by his gauge his pastor, 
plodding along on foot over the old 
route to the Heavenly City; and the 
pastor was found wanting. 

We of the other Church could of 
course count up the sins of our own rector 
on our fingers; but naturally we are 
not so well advised about Presbyterian 
infirmities. Apparently the wickedness 
was of that subtly spiritual kind that 
outwardly is of the most innpcent com- 
plexion. This shepherd of the other 



138 An Operetta in Profile. 

flock had provided the children with a 
Christmas-tree on which glittered angels 
in spun glass. There were flowers on 
his reading-desk in church. And worst 
of all, he was the most popular man in 
town with the young men who had 
grown up around him. These young 
men thought that their best evenings 
were spent in their pastor's study, — plain 
and convincing proof of something 
wrong in the study. What was the 
peculiar gravity of these offences, I do 
not know. The answer is as difficult as 
why in the Marian persecution a bishop 
should have been burned for teaching a 
seal to come to his whistle, and for 
dining at table with his domestics. 
What is certain is, that this pastor 
found himself suddenly obliged to leave 
the church that had been his field for 
so many years, to the astonishment of 



An Operetta in Profile. 139 

the majority of his congregation. This 
astonished majority resolved to " swarm " 
with their pastor and to build a new 
church. 

Doubtless you know what happened 
next. Leave a spider free, and she will 
spin a web ! Give a Churchwoman of 
any denomination her head, and she will 
evolute a fair. It is a strictly feminine 
development, like a woman's lunch of 
sugared violets and sweet champagne. 
Men understand neither the one nor 
the other, — and, for that matter, are only 
asked to pay for both. It was here that 
the attorney's wife began to steer the 
Presbyterian barge. 

** By all means," said she. " We will 
have the fair and forestall the Operetta 
(or they will forestall us) ; it will be easy. 
I happen to know that they are rehears- 
ing without stopping for breath, because 



140 A /I Operetta in Profile. 

it is impossible to give an Episcopalian 
entertainment in Lent. It must happen 
on one of the three last days of the 
week preceding. They cannot be ready 
for an earlier date. Therefore if we 
rent the hall and advertise our fair for 
those, three days and evenings — " 

She paused expressively. 

'' But what will they do then? " asked 
one of her hearers timidly. 

"Do? Do without!" and her eyes 
gleamed. '' Let them wait till after 
Lent." 

There you have it, — or rather we 
had it. This was the news awaiting our 
next rehearsal. 

" I call that — Well, on second 
thoughts, as these are ladies acting for a 
Church, we shall do better not to call it at 
all," said the Portrait, under the first sting 
of the news. At this up rose the three 



An Operetta in Profile. 141 

Burglars (Presbyterian, you remember), 
as on one spring, and — resigned. 

** I will get you three better ones 
whittled out to-morrow," said Mrs. 
Pepperton. But we looked blankly at 
each other. Were the Operetta a case 
of true love, all this would be in reason. 
But in a town wasting and eaten away 
with its own dulness, why did the very 
stars in their courses fight against us 
when we offered it something like amuse- 
ment? And we could have spared any- 
thing better than a man. A man that 
can use his legs and arms and voice in 
amateur theatricals is as hard to catch 
in such a town as ours, as — an air of 
distinction. And here were three men 
gone at one fell swoop ! It was possible 
to substitute women — strong-minded 
women asserting their rights, and also 
their superiority by their scientific 



142 Alt Operetta in Profile. 

scheme of burglary. But however droll 
the dialogue, the scenic effect would be 
spoiled. It is the eye as well as the ear 
that the drama must convince. If you 
are to get in sympathy with an audi- 
ence, you are not to tell them a thing 
has happened, but to make it happen 
then and there, and let them literally 
take stock in its action. Feminine bur- 
glars would look inefficient and unreas- 
onable. At this juncture occurred the 
name of my Ideal Young Man, then vis- 
iting in town. He might be willing to 
take the vacant oar in our boat ; and to 
me as an acquaintance (acquaintance, 
indeed!) was intrusted a note of invita- 
tion for him. Then the great question 
of dates came up for consideration. 

The other Church had stolen our days, 
— at least the evenings of those days. We 
had not precisely bought those evenings ; 



An Operetta in Profile. 143 

we had no pre-emption claim in them. 
In that great moral common outside of 
the Law and its limitations, it is not so 
easy to stake off one's claims. Yet one 
hardly expects to find Church members 
scudding away around corners with your 
ideas in that Artful-Dodger style. We 
were witty and bitter and crushing ; but 
there is nothing so stubborn as a fact. 
And, after all, the other denomination 
had pocketed our days; that could 
not be brushed away or rubbed out by 
the keenest sarcasm. To try to tide the 
Operetta over Lent, was virtually to 
abandon the affair. Everybody knows 
the deadly and death-dealing nature of 
things dramatic in amateur circles. 
Apparently there is something in the 
mere stir of anything theatrical that sets 
loose all the appropriate bacteria for 
killing off the grandmothers, uncles, and 



144 ~ ^^^ Operetta in Profile. 

cousins of the dramatis personcE; send- 
ing the actors into mourning, and out 
of the play. Then the jealousies ! They 
alone would blow up the Operetta like 
so much dynamite, or eat it away like 
vitriol. From the very outset we had 
gone at once into a chronic condition of 
receiving resignations dictated by spite 
over night, and persuading the unre- 
signed resigners the next day to recon- 
sider. Then the bouquet, the sparkle, 
the aroma of the present morhent ! That 
would exhale, leaving the whole affair 
flat and tasteless. Hold the Operetta 
over Lent? Bind the dew fast on the 
lawn ! We accepted the impossible ! 
Let the Committee for the fair keep 
their stolen days ! (We insisted on styl- 
ing them ^' stolen.") These were the 
last three days of the week before Ash 
Wednesday. The Operetta should be 



An Operetta hi Profile, i45 

given on Monday of that week, — this, 
although the fourth act was not yet 
in rehearsal, and although it embodied 
the most difficult conception of the 
Operetta ! 



10 



'* I could be bounded in a nutshell, and 
think myself a king of infinite space, were it 
not that I have bad dreams," 

And all this time the .note to my 
Ideal Young Man was twisted and re- 
twisted in my restless fingers. All sum- 
mer was in that name. The pale sand, 
the mighty opal arch of sky, the sharp 
hiss of the waves, the broad moors, 
silent but for the whistle of a blackbird 
here and there — why, I saw it all again ! 
And when one name holds so much, is 
it quite certain that its owner would sit 
comfortably in the Pumpkin with the — 
Portrait? Or rather, as the Portrait was 
quite unconscious of the role of fairy 
prince that I had assigned him, should 



An Operetta in Profile, 147 

I sit comfortably in the Pumpkin be- 
tween my last summer and the pro- 
gramme for my future — theatre? 

One of our problems in vulgar frac- 
tions comes up each summer, and each 
year is more difficult of solution. There 
is a bit of the family-tree growing in 
Vermont, and the children are sent 
there for the summer vacation. If 
Mamma leaves town she goes there also. 
But it really does not matter so much 
in her case ; she is the balance-wheel, — 
important enough, but out of sight; 
nobody remembers her. And Papa — 
it would be absurd to think of Papa as 
going anywhere; he is the working- 
beam of — of everything. But I am the 
family Dial-plate, informing the world 
at large whether it is social high noon, 
or getting into the decline with us. Be- 
sides, how is a girl to meet — to know — 



148 An Operetta in Profile. 

people, to find that younger theatrical 
manager, if she is rooted at home 
where are eight men who are as tired of 
her as she is of them? Is that brutal? 
It is true. Do you notice, Truth is 
brutal; and, in my opinion, with the 
brutality of a god, not a goddess, — 
she would never be so directly rude ; 
anything feminine could, would, should, 
must, sometimes insinuate. 

As it happened, last summer was a 
barren one; no invitations to visit any 
one till late in the season, and then at 
second hand. It was as a friend of a 
friend, to complete a party of six, that 
I was invited to visit an Arcadian family 
resident for the summer at Nantucket, 
or, more properly, at Siasconset Beach. 
Nantucket, as I dare say you know, is 
an island well out at sea, all its moors 
undulating in green waves, as though it 



A 71 operetta in Profile. 149 

had just hardened out of the surround- 
ing sea. The town, clean, trim, sleepily 
satisfied, sits on its hill glittering in the 
sun. It looks on a harbor blue as vio- 
lets, shut in by long, low spits of tawny 
yellow sand, all of which makes a won- 
derful bit of coloring on a fair day. 
There are no finer complexions, better 
brains, or keener thinkers than are in- 
digenous to Nantucket. Pioneers of 
thought and some of God's most un- 
selfish saints and martyrs belong to her ; 
plain living and high thinking has always 
been her rule ; on her scale, brains rank 
first, religion gets in somewhere between, 
and money last. The dollar argument 
has not the same conviction in it as on 
the mainland, and there is a jungle and 
tangle all over the island of a stiff, 
sturdy American self-respecting inde- 
pendence, embarrassing now and then 



150 All Operetta in Profile. 

to those who put their faith rather in 
money than in a common humanity. 

Between Nantucket and Siasconset are 
seven miles of moor — seven miles of vio- 
lets in May; of wild roses, honeysuc- 
kle, and sweet bay, later on. Siasconset 
itself is like an expression or a perfume ; 
it defies photograph, brush, or pen. It 
was built, they say, in the time of good 
neighbors, when, if a man announced, 
*' I want a house," his hearers replied, 
** Then come ! Where shall we build it? " 
If one may judge from results, said 
hearers contributed not only labor, but 
any odd boards, gable-end of a house, 
remnant of a ship, or section of whale- 
boat, from their own door-yard ; build- 
ing them all in with entire impartiality. 
The houses are so low-pitched that one 
is all out of drawing beside them, and 
you get into relations with ridgepole and 



Alt Operetta in Profile. 151 

chimney that at home would only be 
possible in a nightmare. They stand 
on broad, deep-rutted, grassy lanes, 
flavored with the salt breath of the sea, 
or the sweetness of bays from the moors, 
and showing through white shimmering 
mist or moonlight, as the case may be. 
And the moonlight is of such penetrat- 
ing splendor — because, no doubt, of the 
clear purity of the air — that you feel it 
like a thrill. The air itself is that of 
the middle Atlantic, touching you with 
the same urgent inspiration. On the 
sand there is the usual joyous seaside 
bustle and glitter, where the long rows 
of striped awnings make a gay picture. 
The streets, or roadways, or lanes, call 
them what you like, are a daily charade. 
Fine young men in tennis-suits go about 
in operatic manner with wheelbarrows 
and pails; and ''fetching" gowns, with 



152 An Operetta in Profile. 

fair girls inside of them, are to be seen 
carrying plates and pitchers. The chic 
of " S'conset " is to be — primeval. It 
has not yet been vulgarized into a Rhine- 
pebble Newport, a regulation watering- 
place; and people whose breeding is 
manufactured by their milliners, and 
those who are on their promotion in 
society, fall ill at the station and go back 
on the next train. There are private 
cottages, and cottages to be rented, of 
various orders. But the real old blue 
of Siasconset life is to rent a fisher- 
man's cottage a century old ; add your 
Saratoga trunks at each end, to serve 
as library and extra sleeping-room, and 
experiment; set up housekeeping, and 
go back to the first principles of life. 
Perhaps, like myself, you have attributed 
all the pinches in the daily shoe to Mrs. 
Grundy ; but that dear old woman is not 



All Operetta in Profile. 153 

left behind at Siasconset. She never is, 
anywhere. She is here skipping about 
in flannels and ounce-hats. And yet 
at Siasconset I began to dream — that 
oysters and clams would be less reserved, 
perhaps in another shape of shell; 
and that if a giraffe danced at all, he 
must certainly dance the Boston dip; 
and that it was the pressure of our 
houses (that is, of the way in which the 
architect sees fit to build them) and of 
our servants (that is, of their ideas as to 
what one must or must not have in a 
house) and of our neighbors (that is, of 
what they think best to buy and use), 
and not by any means we ourselves, who 
really dictate and decide about what we 
call our wants and necessities. Besides, 
I really have always supposed that what 
was grand, classic, noble, poetic, lovely, 
was perhaps not precisely to be bought. 



154 -^^^ Operetta in Profile. 

but that such qualities required gold, 
carving, painting, statuary — a deliberate 
ajid well-trained luxury, in short ; as the 
peach needs the sun on the wall. I 
thought that plain, bare, and simple liv- 
ing was necessarily coarse, sordid, and 
full of discontent ; yet here at Siascon- 
set this very question was given me, 
with the rest of the Arcadian party, as 
a problem to solve experimentally. We 
were allowed no servants, — indeed there 
was no room for them. We were to 
face the most primitive conditions, and 
nothing was made easy for us, I am sure. 
I know as much of trigonometry as a 
cooking-stove; but that stove could 
never have been in its normal condition, 
— chronic dyspepsia alone could account 
for the singular performances of its oven. 
The pump was clearly a Knight of Labor, 
for it was always on the strike, and never 



Alt Operetta in Profile. 155 

would be reconciled to us during our 
stay. Our young men (Harvard) split 
wood, made fires, brought water, pre- 
pared vegetables, went of errands, and — 
gave advice. We — made bread very 
bad or very good, got up omelettes light 
or leather like, dinners good or uneata- 
ble, as that tricksy Chance that presides 
over neophytes would have it. We 
washed pots, pans, cups, and saucers. 
We swept. It was an honest experi- 
ment; and apart from the novelty and 
amusement of this primeval picnic, it 
seems there is a certain pleasure in labor 
per se that is as much a part of it as the 
pink blossoms of an apple-tree. And 
certainly there was evolved from this life 
more wit, more ideas, more cleverness, 
than in all the correct conventional do- 
ings of the entire winter. I have always 
had in stock an ideal house-party that 



156 All Operetta in Profile. 

should express itself chiefly in epigrams, 
be deep in the poets, dyed in the classics, 
keen only about theories, principles, and 
art, and without a sordid nerve in its 
whole make-up; and I found it in an 
unplastered house as we sat about a 
kitchen-table trying to eat with three- 
tined forks. It was not a consequence 
of steel forks and kitchen-tables, but 
surely it is a result of the never-ending 
emergencies that made one active in 
self-defence, and of the primitive life 
that offered the senses so little, forcing 
the spirit to supply beauty and decora- 
tion. A year of cotillons, yachting, 
coaching, and polo offered no such 
harvest. 

Here then was the cream of life. 
Without it of what worth are clothes, 
carriages, grandeurs of any sort? But 
it is necessary to take my conclusions 



An Operetta in Profile. 157 

with a grain of salt ; for have I anywhere 
hinted to you that my Ideal Young Man 
is a son of the hostess of the Arcadian 
party, and assisted in the Arcadian ex- 
periment? There was always in my 
museum an Ideal, though, like Benedict, 
I had no intention of looking after it. 
" Brave he should be, or I 'd none of 
him ; true, or I 'd never cheapen him ; 
gentle, or I 'd never look on him ; of 
brains and good address, or come not 
near me; honorable, or not I for an 
angel ; energetic, and his hair might be 
of what color it pleased God." As it 
chanced, the hair was blond. For the 
rest — well, for the time being, for the 
rest I would have given bail. But I 
take it — one's Ideal is the morning star, 
pulsing and throbbing in a rosy dawn 
that shone never on sea or land. Con- 
clusions drawn in this doubtful light 



158 An Operetta in Profile. 

from an enchanted summer are not to 
be trusted. What, after all, was the 
witchery of that time but the old pri- 
meval trick? An attraction of atoms, 
molecular shifting, and vibration; mat- 
ter once more fooling the subtle spirit 
in a gay masquerade of traits, proper- 
ties, and qualities. Just as the sea and 
the stars call, and such of your dust as 
once belonged to them answers ; as the 
warm breath of the pines on some clear 
height, or as low, close-nestling violets 
stirs, and that of you that once was as 
they, remembers and responds. Of 
such material is love, — the love of the 
poet and the romance. A glance, a 
dance, a sigh, a whisper, a thrill of the 
nerves, a bondage of the eyes, a subtle, 
sweet delirium, crying. Forever, and ex- 
haling like the dew on the moors. The 
love that endures, stronger than age, 



An Operetta in Profile. 159 

death, or the grave, longer than life, 
firm as truth, tender as a mother, the 
sunlight of the soul, is the absolute 
faith of a woman in a man's honor, gen- 
tleness, and goodness proved towards 
her; the firm faith of a man in a 
woman's honor, candor, and devotion 
proved towards him; a sureness of al- 
liance and defence against the whole 
world; a sense of content and well- 
being found nowhere else. And all 
this found by the right man and the 
right woman ; for many excellent people 
are not at all excellent for each other. 
And its right name is friendship. Such 
things are ! Our debt to Julian Haw- 
thorne is not yet old for his portrait of 
such a perfect marriage in the life of his 
father and mother. We are all the 
richer and better of that history. Its 
springtime of happiness is in a manner 



i6o Ajt Operetta in Profile. 

ours, and we have a right to thank God 
for it. But such bhss is a true phoenix ; 
it comes once in a thousand years. 

How do I know, I, a girl? For what 
then are one's eyes and ears? There 
are all the decorous marriages of one's 
acquaintance ready for analysis, where 
there is no scandal, no outbreak, the 
married pair trudging on stolidly, but 
quietly enough ; the man as weak as 
the average, the woman as shallow as 
the average. Each has discerned the 
other, and is ignorant of self; he laughs 
in his sleeve at her shallowness, she 
smiles behind her fan at his weakness. 
And one of these is the stronger, and 
rules virtually or openly; that is to 
say, one possesses an almost absolute 
power over the other. Absolute power 
is not only vital with all manner of evil, 
but in its very essence is transformation ; 



A 71 operetta hi Profile. i6i 

so that the absolute husband or wife is 
actually a wholly different person from 
the man or woman you knew before 
marriage, and seldom a better one. If 
marriage makes a new heaven for the 
time, there is meanwhile a new earth 
in process of formation, waiting for the 
couple who are soon to be turned out 
of Paradise; and very strange beasts 
are to be found in this earth. 

What then is certain in matrimony? 
Money settled on the wife. And I was 
certain that my Ideal lacked money. 
Nothing could be prettier than this Ar- 
cadian experiment, or — more econom- 
ical. It was a clever way of stopping 
Mrs. Grundy's mouth and getting over 
the summer at a cheap rate. I knew 
nothing about the Arcadian family and 
their assets. As I told you, I was in- 
vited as a friend of a friend, and no one 

II 



1 62 An Operetta in Profile, 

thought or spoke of money. Neverthe- 
less, I was privately convinced that our 
summer philosophy was a graceful 
economy; ergo, that my Ideal was 
poor. 

Yet oh, those clear mornings, life in 
the air, and gleam and flash on the 
waves ! Those silent afternoons with a 
sapphire sea and turquoise sky, hol- 
lows and spurs of the sand-hills, all 
sharply outlined in the pale light ! The 
twilight blushing in deepest rose almost 
to the zenith, and the still ocean parted 
in fire to let a round full moon into our 
upper air ! Those nights of Haroun Al 
Raschid, while we wandered in the 
white moonlight, guitar in hand, through 
the wide lanes salt with the sea and 
sweet with clover, cinnamon pinks, and 
bay! One's theories and worldly wis- 
dom may be at the finger-ends, but so 



An Operetta in Profile, 163 

are one's sensations. How many better 
brains than mine have been mastered 
by a throb and a thrill and an ignis 
fatuus of romance ! To send the in- 
vitation intrusted to me by the Com- 
mittee to my Ideal Young Man, was 
simply to overturn the pumpkin, fairy 
godmother and all, — that is, to send it 
to his right address. But suppose it en 
route to the Dead-Letter Office, via^ 
say, Siasconset itself. (There is no 
winter post-office at Siasconset.) Vir- 
tuous, truthful, proper, high-minded 
reader, I know already how you must 
disapprove of me, and how from the 
very beginning I could have had no 
caste with you at all. And still it costs 
me a blush to say that is precisely what 
I did. I addressed the Committee's 
invitation to my Ideal Young Man at 
Siasconset Beach, and posted it. 



" First, a very excellent, good, conceited 
thing ; after, a wonderful sweet air, with 
remarkable rich words to it," 

Our Fourth Act opened on an empty 
stage, where entered the Portrait to a 
suggestive accompaniment of music. 
Mrs. Pepperton objected at once to 
the selection made. She said that Irish- 
wake music was undoubtedly very pretty, 
given in that measured time. For her 
part, she really thought Braham an ex- 
cellent composer, let people talk as they 
would ; much of his writing was worthy 
of Sullivan. But as we were acting in 
the interests of the Church, and the town 
was in such a scandalous humor, would it 
not be better to choose something more 
classical than Harrigan and Hart? 



An Operetta in Profile, 165 

Lucy Pepperton grew scarlet. The 
Portrait suddenly vanished in the hall. 
The Committee, pilloried fast on sofas 
near the piano, were in a nervous agony. 
The " Irish-wake music " was Beet- 
hoven's, — an allegretto movement from 
Opus 14, chosen for a weird preci- 
sion of skip suitable to the Portrait's 
humor, which was troubled, as was evi- 
dent from his walk. Trouble on the 
stage always affects the legs; and so 
touched with gloom was the Portrait's 
stride that he very nearly ran against 
Madame Chiff-Chaff. 

" So abstracted ! " and the lady sur- 
veyed him coquettishly. " A penny for 
your thoughts, Mr. Washington." 

*' A penny is par value. My thoughts 
are below that," returned the Portrait, 
coolly. 

*' To the vulgar crowd perhaps, not to 
me, Mr. Washington." 



1 66 An Operetta in Profile. 

Madame Chiff-Chafif drew a little 
closer. The Portrait eyed her appre- 
hensively; then, aside to the audience: 

" Gray hair in long braids," said he ; 
*'wide hat with roses; shoes half a 
size too small ! In a lady fifty-six years 
old, what might that mean? " Here she 
sighed. ** Coquettish too ! Let us take 
the next train, by all means," Then to 
Madame Chiff-Chafif: ** I was coming 
to find you, my dear madame, to say 
good-by." 

He stopped in consternation. Madame 
Chiff-Chaff had promptly fainted on the 
nearest sofa. 

"Awkward!" remarked the Portrait. 
" Still, while she is there she is harmless, 
and it will be wise to go at once." 

Suiting the action to the word, he is 
stealing out accordingly, when suddenly 
the fainting lady sits erect with flashing 
eyes. 



i 



An Operetta in Profile. 167 

" Stop, sir ! My bill, if you please, 
sir, before you go ; my bill, Mr. Wash- 
ington, for board and tuition of twenty 
young ladies for one week at sixty dol- 
lars apiece. Twelve hundred dollars ! 
And had I known your real charac- 
ter and theirs before, I can only say 
the task would never have been un- 
dertaken at all." And she sailed out 
majestically. 

The Portrait fell limply into the near- 
est chair, and fumbling in his pocket, 
brought out, not twelve hundred dollars, 
but a dozen neatly folded little notes. 
He opened one and read aloud, — 

We have a half holiday this afternoon. Be 
sure and meet me near the statue of Lincoln. 
I have so much to tell you. And let nobody 
know. 

Ever yours, 

MOLLIE. 



1 68 An Operetta in Profile. 

*' They all read like that," said the 
Portrait, looking with haggard eyes at 
the audience, " all the dozen ! Two 
of them have appointed the monu- 
ment as a rendezvous, three the boat- 
landing, two the Episcopal church, 
one the post-office, two the railway- 
station, and two the Picnic Grove ! 
Each charges me to tell no one else, 
and I have promised each girl to meet 
her! " 

Here a servant brought in three letters 
on a tray. He opened the first. A bill 
for twenty pairs of shoes at ten dollars 
a pair — for the Statues. The second — 
a bill for twenty hats at ten dollars a- 
piece — for the Statues. The third — a 
bill for forty boxes of Huyler's candy 
at two dollars apiece — for the Statues. 
And thirty dollars for a week's chewing- 
gum. ** Five hundred and ten dollars ! " 



Alt Operetta in Profile. 169 

cried the Portrait wildly. "Excellent; 
better and better ! " 

At this juncture entered the Statues 
and Chiff-Chaff girls. All the Statues 
were hobbling on high-heeled shoes. 
Every girl sat down on one foot, or else 
stood with one leg shortened. Every 
girl was chewing gum, and all were talk- 
ing together and giggling violently. 
The Portrait looked at them critically, 
and suddenly threw up his hat. All the 
girls screamed at once. 

**What is that for?" 

" I have found a recipe for making my 
fortune, ladies; and I owe it to you. It 
came while thinking what charming wives 
you would make." 

All the girls together: "Oh, you 
funny man ! " 

" Five hundred and ninety," promptly 
returned the Portrait. 



I/O All Operetta in Profile. 

All the girls in full cry again : " Oh, 
you funny man ! Five hundred and 
ninety what? " 

** The five hundred and ninetieth time 
in two days that I have been called a 
funny man ; I have kept account in my 
note-book." 

*' Oh, you funny — " But the Portrait 
had vanished. The senior Chiff-Chaff 
hesitated, looked slyly around her, and 
edged towards the door. 

*' Better not take the trouble," ob- 
served the girl next to her; *' it will 
be quite thrown away. He is engaged 
to walk with me this afternoon." 

The senior Chiff-Chafif whirled about. 
*' Don't tell falsehoods, miss ; he is going 
with me." 

*' I have his note in my pocket." 

'' So have I." 

Girl Number Three : " What absolute 



Aji Operetta in Profile. 171 

nonsense ! He is to meet me at the 
church." 

'* You ! " (Girl Number Four.) '' He 
is to meet me there." 

'' I beg your pardon ! He meets me 
at the post-office this afternoon; I 
have his note" (Girl Number Five). 
<iThis — " 

" His note — so have I ! " " So have 
I ! " " So have I ! " Every one of the 
dozen girls was wearing the note in her 
pocket; each one was prompt to bring 
it out; and — oh, insult! oh, injury! — 
each note was found written in precisely 
the same words. 

The curtain went down, but rose 
almost instantly; time being required 
only to draw the inner curtain that hid 
the main body of the stage. The Por- 
trait, in turban, beard, and long robe 
covered with mysterious Oriental char- 



\J2 An Operetta in Profile. 

acters, stood in a booth, showing shelves 
of bottles and hung with placards of, 
'' For Sale Here, the World-renowned 
Charactagent." The Portrait was sur- 
rounded by an audience of men all 
masked, whorn he addressed as fol- 
lows : — 

'' Gentlemen, as you must have ob- 
served, everything in the universe is 
wrong and ill-fitting. It defies even our 
scientists, who could have made a much 
better world, but have little hope of 
setting this one right, as there is always 
a missing link somewhere. But nowhere 
is the inefficiency of Nature more clearly 
shown than in the relations of women to 
men. In the first recorded speech of 
man he lays the blame of what had just 
happened on a woman; and he has 
continued to do so ever since — justly! 
She is an anomaly in creation. She is 



A 71 operetta in Profile. 173 

not to be reckoned among the animals, 
for she pinches her waist and her feet; 
nor yet among men, for she is incapable 
of reason. Properly classified, she might 
rank among the higher order of parrots, 
so ready is her tongue and her power of 
imitation. But it was never possible to 
get together a dispassionate jury on 
this question, because every man is the 
son of one woman, and has been, is, or 
will be, in love with some other. The 
back-stairs influence will always pre- 
vent the truth from getting into court. 
Strongly impressed with this evil, I have 
spent many years in Thibet, among the 
heights of the Himalayas, searching 
there under the guidance of the brother- 
hood of adepts for the means to put 
woman in her proper place. The 
brotherhood showed a certain enthu- 
siasm on the subject, believing, from 



1/4 ^^^ Operetta in Profile. 

occult philosophy, to one's view at 
a theatre, that there is very little in 
this world with which a woman does 
not interfere. In various clairvoyant 
visions I have seen and learned where 
to find the substances from which is 
manufactured the Charactagent. Here 
it is, gentlemen ! The sublimated es- 
sence of lead contained in these bottles 
will reduce woman to her proper status 
in creation. Three drops in your wife's 
coffee, — and the potion, I assure you, is 
tasteless and leaves no sediment, — and 
your wife becomes a housekeeping au- 
tomaton. Four drops might be neces- 
sary for the cook, as the cook is apt to 
be of a more virulent species. But 
four drops at the most will introduce 
into your houses an infallible house- 
keeping, cooking, washing, stitching, 
child-minding, always-in-time, never- 



Aji Operetta in Profile. 175 

out-of-temper, self-running, non-eating 
machine, that can neither ask for 
money, read your letters, answer back, 
give advice, have ideas, criticise you, or 
put two and two together. Four drops 
for a dose ; six doses in each bottle ; 
five dollars a bottle. Reduction allowed 
to Charactagent clubs." 

Tremendous applause ! The music, 
which has all the while gone on in an 
undertone, rising to a stormy tarentelle, 
and then dying out in violoncello throbs, 
and a stealthy Conspirators* Chorus, as 
the Masks come forward to buy the 
Charactagent. 

'' I," said the first Mask, ** have mar- 
ried the Whole Duty of Man in petti- 
coats ; and she is ready for me with 
chapter and verse on all occasions." 

** I," said the second Mask, "■ courted 
a shy, timid, blushing creature, and have 



1/6 An Operetta in Profile, 

married my master — and a hard one at 
that!" 

'' And I ! And I ! And I ! " from a 
dozen eagervoices as the Portrait handed 
out bottles of Charactagent and as rapidly 
pocketed purses and bank-notes tossed 
him in exchange, the music and all the 
voices swelling into a laughing ha-ha ! 
chorus, till — a rush of notes and a 
change of key, and behold ! Madame 
Chiff-Chafif, the Chiff-Chaff girls, and 
the Statues ! The Portrait sees, and 
flies ; the Masks scatter in every direc- 
tion. The Portrait rushes across the 
stage and out at the nearest door as 
his hunters burst in at another. Hard 
driven, as they turn a corner he skims 
through a window ; they appear at one 
end, he vanishes at the other, — the mu- 
sic going on with it all as in a panto- 
mime, urging on the hurry and stress of 



An Operetta in Profile. 177 

the situation, till, caught, penned in, bills 
and billets-doux shaken in his face with 
a shrill staccato chorus of denuncia- 
tion, the Portrait is beaten back at all 
points — when suddenly there is heard 
a drum; an indescribable clicking, 
thumping, rattling, jarring; a few minor 
chords, — the grimly ridiculous Mario- 
nette March ! A procession, — black- 
masked, black-robed figures stalking 
solemnly with every sign of woe, and 
beside each — a woman ? No ; a thing 
of springs and knobs and joints and 
plates of iron, — a machine ; an auto- 
maton; the victims of the Characta- 
gent! And behind these, the Police. 
The husbands, trembling for their own 
safety, had denounced the Portrait, who 
sold them the wicked Charactagent in- 
stead of an innocent tonic solution of 
iron for which they asked. All the fig- 
12 



178 Alt Operetta in Profile. 

ures set at him in a stormy contra-dance 
of vengeance ; and flying from one to the 
other in his despair, as the clock strikes 
twelve he calls on Midnight. The lights 
burn low. Show once more the pedes- 
tals, the Portrait's frame, the glittering 
Midnight Shadow. The music wails and 
shudders; the Statues stiffen, recede, 
remount their pedestals; the Portrait 
blends with his background ; the curtain 
falls. Behold the Operetta whole, com- 
plete, finished at last; and the Com- 
mittee charmed, and much disposed to 
think they had written it themselves, so 
well did it suit them ! Then came a 
pleasant expansion of smiles and con- 
gratulations. The malicious Doppel- 
ganger, the censorious town, the short- 
ness of the time, and the difficulty of 
getting all this in smooth running order, 
were all for once locked away in the 



An Operetta in Pi'ofile. 179 

skeleton closet, while we pulled knobs, 
and tried springs, and rattled plates, and 
shook metal clappers on the Characta- 
gent's victims' tin armor, and satisfied 
ourselves that it was efficient and effect- 
ive ; still — Somebody says that women 
have antenna ; my antennae it was, no 
doubt, that suggested to me something 
heavy and brooding, something gone 
wrong somewhere. 



*' Fie upon 'But yet'! ' But yet' is 
as a jailor to bring forth some monstrous 
malefactor." 

Madame Chiff-Chaff had not taken 
part in this rehearsal; in fact, she had 
not yet arrived. She was apt to be 
late ; for with such an excellent excuse 
as three little Chiff-Chaffs, why should 
she bore herself with punctuality? Be- 
sides, from her house, in the Debatable 
Land, to the Upper Bay, on which stood 
Mr. Pepperton's dwelling, measured 
certainly a mile, — a mile of ice and 
mud. At first the Peppcrton carriage 
brought to rehearsals those club-mem- 
bers who lived at inconvenient distances ; 
but the favored passengers were so 
surpassingly boastful, and members liv- 



An Operetta in Profile. i8i 

ing within two minutes' walk of the Pep- 
perton gates were so personally slighted, 
that the Pepperton horses perforce stayed 
at home rehearsal-nights. Still, she had 
never been quite so late ; and as the oc- 
casion was special, we were restless and 
impatient. We stood about in groups 
and eyed clocks and idly wondered, when 
suddenly a Cyclone enveloped the Au- 
thor, the Committee, Lucy Pepperton, the 
Portrait, and myself, whirled us across the 
hall to the library, and closed the door. 
This Cyclone was Mrs. Pepperton, hold- 
ing a note and a long dangling news- 
paper slip. 

'* From Mrs. Chiff-Chaff," said Mrs. 
Pepperton; ** just arrived." 

" Then I wager," returned the Portrait, 
** that she has resigned." 

Mrs. Pepperton turned sharply on him 
— " So you knew, then? " 



1 82 An Operetta in Profile. 

The Portrait smiled. " Not at all ; but 
it is in the run of this Operetta. From 
the very beginning nothing has fallen 
out in the usual reasonable way. Some- 
thing like a malicious providence has 
watched over each step and thwarted 
it. Our coaching-party is out in some 
sort of a moral thunder-storm without 
umbrellas, and a v/orrying imp is 
always loosening our wheels in the 
bargain." 

*' I think I could name your * mali- 
cious providence ' and * worrying imp,' 
if I liked," returned Mrs. Pepperton 
dryly, tapping the newspaper slip with 
an angry finger. ** Just read." 

The slip was from our local news- 
paper. It contained no allusions to an 
Operetta, or an upstart Upper End 
aristocracy, as we had half expected; 
only a cutting from '' The Wabash Daily 



An Operetta in Profile. 183 

Exterminator ;" subject, the wasting fever 
of social decadence, slowly eating away- 
American society. The cause, it seemed, 
was not far to seek. Tea-gowns, tailor- 
made gowns, and amateur theatricals, 
especially amateur theatricals, were the 
social bacteria. . And very bitter the 
writer was, particularly as against 
young married women, who fluttered 
away to rehearsals, leaving neglected 
husbands and children at home. From 
this point a local artist evidently inter- 
vened, and the description was trimmed, 
shaped, and fitted to Mrs. Chiff-Chaff 
as though it were a new spring wrap. 
Her special roles, her personal appear- 
ance, the number and age of her chil- 
dren, the style of her house, and the 
object of the Operetta, were all included 
in the portrait. Mrs. Chiff-Chaff's note 
read as follows : — 



184 Aji Operetta in Profile, 

My dear Mrs. Pepperton, — I am obliged, 
at the cost of bitter disappointment to myself, 
to resign my role in our Operetta. Mr. Chiff- 
Chaff and I both see that it is inevitable. 
The enemy shows too many guns for us ; the 
next newspaper-cutting might be worse. That 
pair of scissors that makes selections from the 
"Wabash Exterminator," hangs in a house 
not far from mine, and, like the pen, is more 
dangerous than the sword. The cause — as 
it will be necessary to state a cause for my 
resignation in announcing it, we may as well 
call it — the children. They are in thorough 
good health, and were I to spend three 
weeks in getting up a fau*, or every day 
in the week in my neighbor's house, they 
would, I dare say, be in no sort of danger. 

But as it is Fill in that blank as you 

like. The enclosed slip was handed in at 
our door anonymously an hour ago j it may 
interest you. 

Yours cordially, 

Lucy Chiff-Chafp'. 



All Operetta hi Profile. 185 

*' It does interest me, and I know 
how to fill in the blank very well," broke 
in Mrs. Pepperton sharply, as the read- 
ing concluded. *' But then — we cannot 
accept her resignation. As for that, 
people will always talk; and, after all, 
what does it matter? " 

" If only other people would not 
listen," cut in our Author quickly, '' it 
would not matter; but as it is, Mrs. 
Chiff-Chafif is quite right to be afraid 
and resign." 

" Certainly ; we ourselves have had 
some experience," murmured Mrs. Pep- 
perton, with tears in her eyes. 

''We have all had experience," said 
the Portrait, beginning abruptly to walk 
up and down. '' I speak for myself I 
could accuse myself as well as Hamlet. 
But, after all, I mean to be honest; I 
take myself to be a decent fellow 



1 86 An Operetta in Profile. 

enough ! Yet there is a version of me, 
extant in certain houses as a sort of 
society Belial, for the truth of which 
many of my fellow-townsmen are ready 
to die at the stake, as though it were an 
article of faith to them; they knozv it 
is all so. Mrs. Chiff-Chaff is right. Let 
her keep out of it; the game is not 
worth the candle. All the same, what 
are we to do now?" 

*' There is a girl," put in Lucy Pep- 
perton unexpectedly, for she had been 
quite silent hitherto, *'who sings bet- 
ter than Mrs. Chiff-Chafif, and as an 
actress ranks any woman in town. She 
will wear as many wrinkles and as 
much gray hair as is needed, and she 
will take the part without grimace or 
hesitation, because she is always try- 
ing to oblige other people, whether they 
use her well or not, — I mean the girl 



An Operetta in Profile. 187 

who made the diagram for the second 
act." 

'The very person! Lucy, that is a 
clever idea;" and Mrs. Pepperton treated 
her daughter to a burlesque embrace. 
" For that matter, I wonder she was 
never asked before." (The Portrait looked 
meaningly at me.) " Why not drive to 
her house now, and bring her here at 
once? " 

Then everybody looked at me. Had 
it been ten o'clock of the next day, 
about which time after any event my 
wits always arrive, with drums beating 
and flags flying, I should have accepted 
the inevitable, picked up the nearest 
wrap, and proposed to go and ask her 
myself. But it was the present Hour. 
And there is the whole difference 
between Genius and Incapacity. Your 
Genius may have headaches and indi- 



1 88 An Operetta in Profile. 

gestion, absurdities and superstitions; 
may be handsome or ugly, winning 
or detestable. But it has a hawk's eye, 
however the Hour may be masked, for 
the real face beneath ; while Inca- 
pacity stumbles on and sees nothing — 
till the next day. Incapacity, standing 
in this case for me, caught a pitying 
and warning glance from our Author, 
and a flitting smile from under the 
Portrait's mustache, but was stupid 
enough to be simply angry, and to 
answer, icily, — 

'' Under our rules the whole society 
must ballot for Mrs. Chiff-Chaff's suc- 
cessor. It will be necessary to call a 
special meeting." 

'' Perhaps, then," retorted Mrs. Pep- 
perton, on the instant all fire and ice 
from head to foot, " as you are the 
secretary, you will have the kindness 



An Operetta in Profile, 189 

to call your meeting for to-morrow 
evening." 

And turning her back squarely on 
me, Mrs. Pepperton seized the Por- 
trait's arm and walked out of the li- 
brary with emphasis. And how em- 
phatic gait can be, and how much a 
back can express on occasion ! The 
Committee hesitated, looked uneasy, 
looked foolish, and dribbled away out 
of the door in an unutterably guilty 
manner. Only our Author lingered a 
moment. 

*' Child," she said softly, '' think a 
little as to what measure you give. Re- 
member, it shall be meted to you again 
— in kind." 

I instantly decided that I hated her 
worse than Mrs. Pepperton. " You are 
too kind, madam." Then I threw 
up my head. *' But I assure you 



190 An Operetta in Profile, 

you have entirely misunderstood the 
whole matter." Then I too turned my 
back squarely, and walked out, elated 
that I had not been left last in the 
library after all. 



" Go, sirrah, for all you are my man, 
go, wait upon my cousin Shallow. A 
justice of the peace sometime may he be- 
holden to his friends for a man, I keep 
hut three men and a hoy yet, till my 
mother he dead : But what though ? I live 
like a poor gentleman horn," 

Miss Skeggs — that is, the young lady 
who filled the 7vle — drove a Tub. And 
it was virtually understood that she and I 
in company should deliver the summons 
for a special meeting, at the residences 
of club-members, to avoid delay. We 
boast a post-office, it is true ; but for 
various reasons our mail-deliveries are 
slow and uncertain. The process of 
steaming a letter open and resealing it 
must be a delicate one. Probably it 



192 A71 operetta in Profile. 

requires time, and sometimes, no doubt, 
letter-envelopes are injured beyond re- 
pair. This also was a season of special 
interest, and corresponding pressure on 
our post-mistress. For there were in the 
air scandals concerning a lady who re- 
ceived bulky letters from New Orleans, 
whispers of a betrothal or so, and all 
the Operetta tittle-tattle ; so that, taking 
one consideration with another, the Tub- 
delivery was preferred. Miss Skeggs ar- 
rived at an early hour, like Phoebus, and 
ushered herself in, remarking,— 

'* And so we are to ballot for the girl 
we left behind us." 

" Precisely ! " This was I, furiously 
addressing notices and shoving them 
into envelopes. I Vv^as just in that 
humor where I could think of nothing 
with toleration, unless it might be an 
old master or so, three thousand miles 



A 71 operetta in Profile. 193 

away. And as I am not deep enough 
in Hermetic mysteries to take my spi- 
ritual self to Dresden and leave my 
*' shell " to grimace and chatter among 
the other puppets of the town, there was 
no consolation in them. 

Miss Skeggs tossed aside her muff, 
played a few bars at the piano to my 
further distraction, for she was out of 
time, and whirled herself sharply around 
on the music-stool. 

" I wonder if she gets in, after all? " 
^'If! She must; there is no ^if.'" 
*' I am not so sure." Miss Skeggs 
came to my writing-table and stood 
reading the envelopes already addressed, 
one after the other, pushing them away 
in turn so vigorously that some of them 
slid entirely underneath a large port- 
folio. '' One black-ball will exclude her, 
you know ; I am good for that." 

13 



194 ^^^ Operetta in Profile. 

I had been thinking something of the 
sort myself; and her suggestion making 
me instantly feel like a conspirator, I 
could only mutter in an ineffectual way : 
''Take care!" 

"Of what; of whom?" cried Miss 
Skeggs scornfully, re-arranging the port- 
folio. '' You want her precisely as I do ; 
that is, not at all. And there are four 
Statues and five Chiff-Chaffs who are 
of the same mind. Mamma considers 
her common." 

Here sounded a voice from the door- 
way, " May I come in?" and lo ! Mr. 
Skeggs, who had evidently spied the 
Tub waiting at our door. The lady and 
gentleman exchanged cool nods, and 
Mr. Skeggs seated himself in a lounging^ 
chair with an air of enjoyment, his pale 
eyes fixed on my writing-table. Miss 
Skeggs shrugged her shoulders angrily, 



An Operetta in Profile. 195 

and walked to the bay window, where 
she stood looking out at the street. 

*' Quite a triumph for the young lady 
who was not asked to join our club!" 
observed Mr. Skeggs, looking first at 
the pile of envelopes, and then critically 
at the knob of his cane. ** They say she 
considers it kind of you to construct an 
Operetta with so much pains, into which 
she can step at the last moment and 
take all the honors, as she always does." 

There is a quietly considering look, as 
of one who listens to some unutterable 
folly, succeeded by a slowly dawning 
smile, quickly suppressed with polite 
rigor. I never saw any one who could 
not be successfully routed by this little 
trick of muscles ; and I tried it without 
remorse on our would-be tormentor. 
But Miss Skeggs was less on guard. 

** Let her buy her green gown and 



196 An Operetta in Profile. 

toss her head when her chickens are 
hatched !" she exclaimed angrily, coming 
out of the bay window. Then, sweeping 
the entire pile of envelopes into her 
muff: " Pray, my dear secretary, are 
you ever coming? The pony has been 
standing out there in the cold long 
enough. I am sure you will excuse us, 
Mr. Skeggs, as this is society business. 
And then—" 

I wonder if other men and women 
who write books find it intolerable to 
relate certain bits of the story. From 
the very beginning I have been dread- 
ing this envelope episode, and wonder- 
ing all the way if I could not bring my 
reader to divine that I knew Miss 
Skeggs had hidden certain notices un- 
der the portfolio, in place of brutally 
admitting it in so many words. I was 
sitting at my table in hat and wrap, and 



An Operetta in Profile. 197 

did not glance at her, having that ir- 
ritated consciousness of her that one 
writing, and hurried, always has of a 
presence that is urging one. But one 
sees out of the side of the eye ; and in 
that way I knew well enough that she 
hid certain notices under the portfolio. 
Which notices, I was not sure ; but I 
certainly divined they were addressed 
to those friends of the Diagram-maker 
who would not only ballot for her, but 
would be zealous and lobby for her. 
And all the time I was conscious of this 
in a subjective way. I told myself that 
I knew nothing about it at all; that I 
was thinking of Mr. Skeggs's childish 
curiosity, and the equally childish spite 
between him and Miss Skeggs ; and — 
final triumph of logic — that I quite forgot 
there were, or could be, any notices left 
behind at all, as I hurried out after Miss 



198 A7Z operetta in Profile. 

Skeggs, and we drove away in the keen 
sparkling morning air. Still, it was with 
a quiver of consternation that I saw 
Raya Yog, he looked so unpleasantly 
penetrating as he took off his hat ; and 
there floated through my mind the 
question, ^' For which Church indeed? " 
In the way of our business we were 
to stop at half the houses in town. In 
each house there was a copy of the 
local paper, and we were plunged per- 
force into a discussion of the merits 
of the article fitted so neatly to Mrs. 
Chiff-Chaff. Sometimes the session 
lasted ten minutes, sometimes half an 
hour. Sometimes if there were two 
or three ladies, they all talked together. 
But they all said the same things, — *' It 's 
a shame, don't you know? And when 
articles as plain and evident as this one 
appear in print, it ought to be stopped, 



An Operetta in Profile. 199 

don't you see?" — as if it had been 
some class in school repeating a lesson 
together. After a time I began to 
wonder, as I have done before, if we, 
instead of being, as every good Ameri- 
can likes to think, the ripened perfec- 
tion of the Ages, are quite civihzed, 
and are not, after all, the most vulgar 
of enlightened nations, more vulgar 
even than the English. Witness the 
Delphic utterance given out from that 
special shrine, the New York Opera- 
House, and copied and set into circu- 
lation by the newspapers all over the 
Union ; namely, " that the persons who 
remained and listened attentively to the 
last act of an opera, evidently were 
only in possession of a box for one 
night, and were anxious to get their 
money's worth." 

Get their money's worth ! And from 



200 An Operetta in Profile. 

music ! From what shop-keeping 
depths, in what bourgeois abyss, could 
that thought have come? Or rather 
from what stall of what fish-market? 
Out of the ashes of what mud-cabin, 
lime-hod, or washing-tub springs this 
arrogant belief in money as a force by 
itself, and this coarse joy in its posses- 
sion? Or look at Howells's ''Boston 
Silhouettes," those heads in black and 
white of the American Athenians, drawn 
with such delicate perfection and piti- 
less truth. That woman, for example, 
of old Bostonian strain and thorough 
refinement, who could not be satisfied 
with courtesy, good-breeding, evident 
honor, and a bright, attractive young 
manhood, but whose very inmost soul 
was wriggling (and Howells makes you 
conscious of the wriggle as if it were 
a physical misery) till she can discover 



A71 operetta in Profile. 201 

in what little local set she is to place 
this manhood, and how he is there re- 
garded. Or take breath and think of 
the Philadelphians. Individually charm- 
ing, hospitable, generous, irresistible, — 
if you have the right letters of introduc- 
tion, or if your great-grandfather was 
born, and well born, in Philadelphia, — 
showing a really fine disregard of money 
and luxury as compared with claims of 
race, but hostile with a Chinese bar- 
barism of prejudice towards all stran- 
gers; the terror of watering-places, 
the arrogant monopolists of hotels, 
the despair of hotel-keepers,, a clan 
that have never heard that noblesse 
oblige. Woe is me, my country ! Where 
is then our special excellence? In 
splendor and misery the English outdo 
us. In delicate finish of style and 
graceful economies, the French. In 



202 An Operetta in Profile. 

sturdy truthfulness of life, universal 
courtesy, and feeling for Art, the Ger- 
mans. For that matter, have we yet 
equalled the writing, thinking, and build- 
ing of the sixteenth century, — even 
their work in gold and silver, and their 
carvings in wood? Is this full and 
perfect flower of the nineteenth-century 
civilization, on the American branch of 
the human race, only a compound of 
steam-engine, stationary washing-tubs, 
furnace-heat, ice-water, some special 
sort of mint-julep, and the ward politi- 
cian? Are these, and the sentiments 
above quoted, our national contribution 
to the characteristics of the age, — all 
that is offered by the children of New 
England Puritans, of the brave men 
of Holland, and of the Cavaliers of 
Virginia? God forbid! Only in our 
town, at least among its women, there 



An Operetta in Profile. 203 

is small suggestion of anything higher. 
Fit any hen of average calibre with a 
chin, a wig, a gown, and a perfect 
larynx:, and bring her in from the barn 
direct; and judging from what one sees 
in poultry-yards and hears in parlors, 
she would, without further preparation, 
express herself as well and show as 
many traces of thought, and in no wise 
disgrace or startle any of the drawing- 
rooms into which we wandered that day. 
It was a short winter day, and soon over ; 
so that we hardly reached home in time 
for dinner and a hasty toilette for the 
business meeting. On my way to this 
last, I saw again the pile of notices left 
under the portfolio, and ordered a ser- 
vant to post them. I learned afterwards 
that this order was obeyed on the fol- 
lowing morning, — that is, the morning 
after the meeting. 



"Let that he left which leaves itself," 

The meeting came to order after 
waiting an extra hour for seven or eight 
absentees, who were all, oddly enough, 
very special friends of the candidate. 
The balloting began. The candidate 
was rejected. There were five black- 
balls. One was sufficient to exclude 
her. Mrs. Pepperton made a brief ad- 
dress, explaining the urgency of the 
case, and assuming some mistake. The 
ballots were taken again. This time 
there were six black-balls. Mrs. Pep- 
perton counted, looked thunderstruck, 
counted again, opened her mouth, shut 
it. Our accompanist touched her on 
the arm and whispered in her ear. Mrs. 



An Operetta in Profile. 205 

Pepperton heard him, nodded gravely, 
and dismissed the meeting. 

Hitherto I have left our accompanist 
unsketched, because I was not sure of 
my outlines. We measure others doubt- 
less by ourselves, and there is no large- 
ness in me, even for evil. It is not likely 
that the strongest stress could bring me 
outside of the usual ; while in him there 
is a breadth of egotism amounting to 
genius, and an unbending selfishness 
equivalent to talent. I could be certain 
of nothing about him. His brilHant 
black eyes looked at you, denying every- 
thing; and at thirty years of age a 
brilliant carmine expressed his color 
and hid his emotions. This head was 
as well furnished within as without. He 
was fluent in three languages, he sang 
well, he sketched admirably. On the 
stage he was an amateur Beckett. At 



2o6 All Operetta in Profile. 

the piano he translated Chopin with 
truth and tenderness. He wrote a clever 
note, and, to make him quite perfect, 
he was ingenious and ready for every 
emergency, — precisely the little man 
that one would like to buy and keep in 
a box, as so convenient in a house. 
Little; for Nature had tied all these 
qualities together, with ambition, and 
then placed this handsome, restless head 
on a body so small as hardly to escape 
dwarfishness. Poor ; without connection, 
or influence, a clerkship would have been 
the only vista open to another man in 
his position. As for him, he was not 
so poor in resources. He adopted the 
profession of — becoming indispensable. 
At present he was indispensable to the 
Pepperton family; though as positions 
can be made, nominally he held one in 
the city, and went to and fro like other 



Aji Operetta in Profile. 207 

business-men. His manner to every one 
was absolutely courteous; but I knew 
(by my antennae, doubtless) that he de- 
tested me. Personally we were as anta- 
gonistic as a purple red and a clear red ; 
while in his profession of being ^' in- 
dispensable," he eyed me in the Pepper- 
ton drawing-rooms as the old-established 
business does the new shop with so 
much plate-glass over the way. Now I 
had just been tripping in the path of 
moral rectitude. Any lie, spoken or 
acted, is a note-of-hand on which you 
are always in difficulties to raise the in- 
terest, and that is sure, sooner or later, 
to fall into some hands that will collect 
the sum-total at ruinous rates. When I 
saw our accompanist whisper to Mrs. 
Pepperton, and then remain behind us 
all, I was penetrated by a chilly belief 
that it was he who would collect this last 



2o8 An Operetta in Profile. 

note of mine, and that the time would 
be sooner rather than later. 

All our sense-perceptions are illu- 
sions, and mere seeming. Time and 
space are in us, not we in them. So 
evidently the events of the next few 
days were all enclosed in my imagi- 
nation, and need never have been let 
loose on the outer world, could I at 
any time have summoned nerve to con- 
tradict myself, — a thing distracting to 
think of, in view of the veritable Pan- 
dora's box that my imagination proved 
to be! 

On its return from the 8 A. M. train 
the Pepperton carriage stopped habitu- 
ally at our gate. But on the morning 
following the business-meeting it drove 
directly past. Not even a hand or 
handkerchief beckoned from its win- 
dows. Later in the day a long seal dol- 



An Operetta m Profile. 209 

man, containing Mrs. Pepperton, walked 
leisurely down the street, stopped two 
doors below, and — went home again. 
Evening came and passed, and still no 
word or note concerning the Operetta. 
Second day, same phenomena; and a 
visit from Mrs, AduUam. Seated in our 
bay window, I saw her squeezed, tailor- 
made gown coming up our steps, and a 
faint fear thrilled me. Mrs. Adullam's 
visits are as ominous of disaster as that 
clear air, in which distant sails and 
shores stand out with startling distinct- 
ness over a breathless, rippling sea, is of 
a howling, shrieking northeaster. Is 
there anybody to be discomforted, she 
comes in at the death as naturally as 
a hound goes after the fox. It is her 
nature to rejoice with those who weep, 
and weep with those who rejoice ; so 
that from the very first instant of rec- 
14 



210 An Operetta in Profile. 

ognizing her toque, my alarmed thoughts 
were busy with the Operetta and with 
what could have happened to it ; till at 
last the conversation reached the subject. 

'' I hear that project is altogether 
given up," said Mrs. AduUam, opening 
her eyes wide in a childlike manner; 
*' and I am so curious. Do tell me all 
about it." 

*' Oh ! one hears so many things in 
a town, Mrs. AduUam," trying on my 
part to look unconcerned. " Pray, who 
told you?" 

Mrs. Adullam, airy, but somewhat dis- 
concerted : *' Oh ! I never give names." 

** Why, then, give the gossip ? Anony- 
mous information is about as reliable as 
an anonymous letter." 

Mrs. Adullam laughed. " It is I who 
am anonymous, my dear — from pru- 
dence. My informant was anything but 



An Operetta in Profile. 211 

anonymous. Quite direct it was, from 
headquarters ; " and she looked me 
straight in the eyes. 

" Headquarters — why every scandal 
comes from headquarters ! Only last 
evening I heard a story about — well, 
about a lady that, if believed, will shut 
every door against her ; and that story 
came from headquarters ! " Then I 
looked her straight in the eyes. Blush- 
ing is not possible for Mrs. Adullam, 
but she turned yellow; she rose. 

" You 're a good counsel-keeper, my 
dear," she laid her hand on the door; 
" but it is of no use to try and pick up 
spilled milk. I assure you it is all over 
town . A iifwiedersehen ! ' ' And she went 
out laughing. 

As I followed her into the hall I was 
surprised by a pile of letters on the 
library table, evidently just brought in 



212 A71 Operetta in Profile. 

from the post. It struck me with a 
strange discomfort to see that they were 
uniform in appearance, and all addressed 
to me as Secretary of the Operetta Club. 
I opened them. From the Portrait : he 
should find it impossible to fill his role 
in the Operetta, and with much regret 
must ask to resign. From Lucy Pep- 
perton : she resigned in the same words. 
From Mrs. Pepperton, the President: 
she resigned ; no regrets of any sort. 
From the Author: she resigned with 
sincere sorrow. From the Committee: 
they resigned curtly and officially. So 
it seemed that, excepting myself, all the 
officers of the club had resigned, leaving 
it without a head or a house to shelter 
itself (for the Pepperton house was 
plainly out of the question), without 
prestige, nerve, or influence ; in short, 
annihilated, spite of its forty remaining 



All Operetta in Profile. 213 

members. My fairy godmother, the 
Operetta, was dead, the pumpkin 
smashed, the fairy prince escaped. 
What would everybody say, and what 
could I say to everybody? That was 
a burning question. Instinctively I be- 
gan to arrange mind, face, and speech. 
**The Operetta? Oh, yes! Wrecked 
entirely. But when there was so much 
opposition, such scandals and jealousies ! 
And the other Church, you know. They 
made off with our days ; and after that — " 
I actually practised that speech. This 
disappointment stung me so sharply 
that I was really afraid I might say 
something — true. Looking out at win- 
dow while so thinking and rehearsing, 
I saw our waitress at the gate with Mrs. 
Pepperton's own maid. The two heads 
were very close together, and there was 
a *■' you don't say so " expression on both 



214 ^^^ operetta in Profile. 

faces. One girl opened the gate, the 
other walked slowly down the street; 
and Bridget, who had undoubtedly seen 
me sitting by the long window, came at 
once to the library and began to be 
busy, not without some sharp glances 
at the letters and myself. There was 
a large table-cover, whose folds she 
seemed to find intricate ; and when once 
sheltered in its midst, she began con- 
versation. 

" It 's a queer world, now, is n't it, 
Miss? Mattie — that is Mrs. Pepper- 
ton's maid, you know — came down a 
piece with me just now." 

'' Ah ! " 

'* And she is full of a story, Miss, 
about some letters that were never 
posted as they should be. Mrs. Pepper- 
ton was that wild, she had it all out at 
dinner ; and the man, that 's the waiter, 



An Operetta in Profile. 215 

you understand, told Mattie. And sure, 
Mrs. Pepperton went down yesterday, 
or the day before, — I don't rightly mind 
which, — to the little house. And did n't 
she give them ladies there a tearing 
scolding for not coming to some meet- 
ing ; * for,' said she, * such friends as 
they be, they might have come to her.* 
And then the ladies said, * Sure they 
never heard nothing of it, at all, at 
all, till the next morning; by the same 
token it was too late before ever they 
got the letters.' And there was the 
post-mark on the letters, and a gentle- 
man told Mrs. Pepperton how five or 
six more had been served the same 
trick; and the same postmark on all 
their letters too ! And Mat, she is full 
of it." 

Here Bridget came out of the table- 
cover and looked hard at me. " It is a 



2i6 An Operetta in Profile. 

pity," said I, gathering up my letters, 
" that she has nothing better to think 
of." And then I escaped from the room ; 
for it seemed to me so much of a pity, 
and the matter so very bad, that I was 
on the verge of crying. The Little 
House and the Great House were bosom 
friends. The Great House liked loung- 
ing in the shabby little parlor, where 
falsehood and meanness never entered, 
and the two gentle, deprecating women 
who lived there never spoke a bitter word 
about any one. There was a close inti- 
macy, a loyal friendship, between these 
two families, so far apart on every other 
count. And the ladies of the Little 
House, as warm personal friends of the 
Candidate, had received their official 
notices of the balloting a day too late. 
I could imagine the scene. And that 
gentleman, darkly hinted at, with his in- 



Alt Operetta in Profile. 217 

formation about other people. I thought 
I knew him, and that I was entitled to 
a sick headache in my own room, if 
only to leave the family questions 
unanswered. 



''Madam, the guests are come, supper 
served up, and you called, my young lady 
asked for," 

On the next day came a Moses' rod 
and swallowed up every other idea in a 
twinkling, — a card of invitation from 
Mrs. Pepperton ! '' Mrs. Pepperton at 
home," and in the right-hand corner, 
** Theatricals." The entire family gazed 
at that card as though I had just drawn 
an Andromeda lot. The Pepperton 
perennials we were prepared for; we 
counted them in the year's expenses; 
we could bear them. But this was an 
extra problem in vulgar fractions that 
could not have been anticipated, and 
was, we felt, cruel. Going was inevita- 
ble. To decline at any time in the year 



An Operetta in Profile. 219 

would be to offend Mrs. Pepperton and 
convince every one else in town that 
I was ostracized and had no invitation. 
But not to go now, when hints about 
the delayed letters were flying about 
the town like sparrows, and the whole 
town had a hand to its ear, not to lose 
the faintest whisper, would be social 
suicide. Yet go in what? To go, when 
there is a girl in question, implies a 
gown ; and as I am not on terms with 
a Mahatma, who might disintegrate 
something in a Calcutta bazaar, or for 
that matter at Arnold & Constable's, and 
re-materialize it again, how was I to get 
a gown? That cJiic is worth more than 
cost and trimmings, I know very well ; 
no one better. If you doubt it, here is 
the history of two gowns in proof. They 
belonged, or rather they were invented, 
by a girl who as a society girl must 



220 A 71 Operetta in Profile. 

make an average appearance, or be so- 
cially bankrupt. More than that, her 
appearance was one of the wheels in her 
father's affairs. Any spiteful whisper 
that she was shabby, would be an injury 
to him that could be counted in dollars 
and cents. Yet a cent more, another 
yard of stuff, an inch of trimming of any 
sort, for the next three months would 
be for her as impossible as to add an 
hour to the day. Her stock in trade con- 
sisted of nine yards of brown cashmere, 
a wide brown hat, a brown ribbon, one 
pair of sixteen-button brown gloves, nine 
yards of white veiling, and a pair of 
thirty-button tan-colored gloves. From 
the cashmere she evolved a plain round 
waist, and a plain skirt without drapery. 
The brown ribbon was tied about the 
hat. The brown gloves were drawn well 
over the tight-fitting sleeves. She had 



An Operetta in Profile. 221 

only hoped to look lady-like; to her 
astonishment she found herself a success. 
The plain dull gown everywhere met 
that instant pause, that silent, search- 
ing gaze, only given to chic and its 
development; it even earned a sneer. 
** Studied simplicity," said a fair critic 
in a picture-gallery. The criticism, in 
conjunction with the sneer, is feminine 
patois for beautiful. The white gown, 
like the Harmony in Brown, cut and 
sewed by herself, fitted her absolutely. 
She possessed no trimming, yet the 
poor little frock took the blue ribbon. 
The feminine solidity of the town 
thought it very fine to have all the men 
raving about one's gown and one's 
shape ; but when one paid a small for- 
tune for that grace of perfect simplicity, 
— and everybody knew how expensive 
was a French modiste's simplicity, — they 



222 An operetta in Profile. 

should prefer something more '' home 
made." But no one suspected her father's 
straits, or the terrible strain of those 
few months ; and she always vows to 
him that she was the Horatius on the 
Bridge in all that memorable time. 

Still, that heroine possessed for her 
evening wear nine yards of stuff. I pos- 
sessed nothing, unless I could subtract 
something from some member of the 
family. And here my eyes fell on 
mamma. Being civilized, mamma al- 
ways, of course, wears covering, things 
in black, — you could hardly call them 
gowns. But a sister in New Orleans, 
hearing of her general shabbiness, had 
just forwarded to her a harmony, a 
symphony, a love in brocade, lace, and 
velvet, a thing of real magnificence, 
a gown to gloat over ! Like a two- 
year-old child, it could stand alone. Or 



An Operetta in Profile. 223 

do they (children, not gowns) stand 
alone at a year and a half, or at twelve 
months? I like to be accurate; but it 
is impossible to ask any matron of ex- 
perience, as no one is to know that I 
am writing this tale at all. The gown 
was an absurdity as related to Mamma, 
for it is of so little consequence what 
she wears. Equally absurd for a girl 
of my age ; yet what choice had I but 
to wear it? Mamma was rebellious. I 
never saw her so perverse. In ten years 
she had never once owned a silk gown 
of any description, and that velvet and 
brocade was really inconsistent! Yet 
she clung to it. She was superior to 
reason. It was impossible to convince 
her that I had only Hobson's choice (I 
have always wondered, by the way, who 
was Hobson, and what he chose), that 
I must go, and there was actually noth- 



224 ^^^ Operetta in Profile. 

ing else in the house that I could wear ! 
Mamma was as doleful as Iphigenia, 
and Papa as disapproving as if, subjec- 
tively, it were not his fault, after all, not 
to have had more business capacity and 
a larger income. So dolefully pre- 
occupied was I that it was only on get- 
ting over the Pepperton threshold into 
the blaze of candle-light, and a scent of 
violets, and the dying echoes of *' Weiss- 
Rosen," that I began to wonder what that 
word ** Theatricals " might signify in the 
right=hand corner of Mrs. Pepperton's 
card. Theatricals without me ! Theat- 
ricals undreamed of a week before, — of 
that I was sure ; I knew the Pepperton 
plans and resources. From what soil had 
been transplanted this, Jonah's gourd? 
Who would appear in them? And, once 
more, why, at least, had I not been 
told? Here I met Mrs. Pepperton, who 



All Operetta in Profile, 225 

eyed me sharply from head to foot, 
nodded abruptly, and turned her back 
more abruptly, before I could get breath 
to explain Mamma's headache, or my 
grand gown could shrivel into Cinder- 
ella rags under her disapproving gaze. 
Mrs. Pepperton is a woman whose de- 
meanor is in no need of footnotes or 
translation. She is as variable as the 
weather; but she has a signal-service 
of her own, and there is no mistaking 
her danger-signals. Like Cheviot Hill, 
" she sees, she thinks, she speaks." So 
many years of good-will and kindness 
linked our two families that it was as 
if one's aunt or sister were in a rage 
with one. But Joan of Arc would shrink 
from a Pepperton snub, raised to a three- 
hundredth witness power in the Pepper- 
ton drawing-rooms. Not to be self- 
conscious is becoming and comfortable. 
15 



226 An Operetta in Profile. 

But is it possible now for a girl who has 
some mental reservations about certain 
suppressed letters, under the bosom of 
a gown twenty years too fine for her, 
and wrenched from her mother at that? 
I felt my knees getting awkward, and 
my elbows and hands going wrong, and 
the want of a veil, or a mask, or an 
umbrella, or a friendly face in the in- 
tolerable light. As I turned I faced 
the Portrait, who bowed coolly; Lucy 
Pepperton, who grew scarlet ; that Girl 
— the Diagram-maker, the Candidate — 
and, hear, O Truth in your Well ! hang- 
ing on her arm. Miss Skeggs, — Miss 
Skeggs, who owned the Tub that stood 
at the gate of my house while she sorted 
out obnoxious letters addressed to the 
Candidate's personal friends, and hid 
them under a portfolio; Miss Skeggs, 
who black-balled her ! If the Diagram- 



An Operetta in Profile, 227 

maker had lost an election, I had evi- 
dently won one, and by unanimous 
consent had been appointed scapegoat. 
Miss Skeggs's eyes met mine. She 
nodded coldly, and turned pointedly 
towards her companion. At that mo- 
ment, *' Have you seen the conserva- 
tory?" said a voice at my elbow, — a 
low, clear, un-English voice, that of 
Raya Yog in faultless evening costume 
and with something so evident in his 
face of that mask or umbrella for which 
I had been wishing that I took his arm 
gratefully. 



*'lVhat trick, what device, what start- 
ling hole canst thou find now to hide thee 
from this open and apparent shame ? " 

The conservatory was empty, and 
wore that air of mystery that belongs to 
silent rooms brilliantly lighted, as this 
was with lanterns and candle-brackets. 
The languid sway and swing of the 
*' Lichtertanz " sounded far away. I 
looked at Raya Yog in astonishment as 
he placed him^self in front of my chair. 

" Now," he said abruptly, *' tell me 
about these letters. Oh, pardon ! there 
is no need to rise. Consider it all said 
that you would say; there is so very 
little time ! As a matter of course you 
will tell me that you do not know what 



An Operetta in Profile. 229 

I mean ; but you do know. The thorn 
of it all is at this moment rankling in 
your breast. Understand, I do not speak 
to you conventionally, but as to a human 
being in trouble for whom much more 
trouble is waiting. It is as if I said the 
house is on fire ! You have five minutes 
for escape ! Will you trust me? There 
is half an hour in which I can yet do 
something for you. After that I can do 
nothing. Tell me the whole truth; I 
am sure there is something yet to hear. 
You had no plan. There was tempta- 
tion sudden and swift. Is it not so? 
Tell it me, and quickly ! " 

Why Raya Yog should meddle in the 
affair at all, or how he could alter its 
features, or at what value half an hour 
could be quoted, was to me so much 
black-letter; but there was conviction 
in the man himself, and, once embarked, 



230 A7t operetta in Profile. 

I found a distinct pleasure in boxing 
my own ears and in avenging myself on 
myself. There was a certain relish in 
offering this keen Oriental a photograph 
of myself done by Truth, not retouched 
or colored, and without attempt at pose. 
As for him, I have never found such an 
audience; as if each and every faculty 
of the man listened without comment ! 
Only at the end he certainly glowed with 
satisfaction. 

"■ Good ! " he replied ; '' that is honest ; 
that is best ! I was sure you were not 
— " he checked himself. ''Later on 
you will thank me," he said, bowed, and 
left me. And, of all people, he joined 
our Author ! Running after him to the 
door, I saw them meet, — she with the 
air of one anxiously waiting. A sharp 
glance about the room, a hand uplifted 
as if in signal, Mr. Skeggs came up to 



A7t operetta in Profile. 231 

them, and the three walked away, their 
heads bent down and close together. 
They went slowly up the broad staircase, 
where a fourth figure joined them, — the 
Portrait, if I was not much mistaken. 



" If a man will he beaten with brains, a' 
shall have nothing handsome about him," 

Somebody came and confided to me 
k something about somebody's velvet. 

Somebody came and danced with me. 
People chatted and fanned. People 
smiled. People looked watchful. Peo- 
ple looked bored. The music went on, 
as if sustaining and bearing it all up. 
Mrs. Adullam came up to me, and I 
vaguely noticed how her complexion 
and pink brocade looked as if done in 
Dresden china. 

** You are brave," said she, ** to come 
to-night." 

I opened my eyes wide. (I could 
always be at ease with that woman.) 



All Operetta m Profile. 233 

"Brave! Why? It is not so very 
cold. Are not you here, and three hun- 
dred other people? " 

She laughed, and tapped me with her 
fan. " You are always clever, — some- 
times too clever; is it not so? " 

What did she mean? I hardly asked 
myself. It was like one of those dreams 
in which, although you are busily act- 
ing, a voice tells you the story, and you 
are never sure which is you, and which 
is the girl in the story,— -on the prin- 
ciple of ''I know when I am I, but 
who am I when I am thou?" There 
was more dancing. Mamma's brocade 
was a belle. Men like sumptuous 
gowns; they leave the shabby girls in 
corners all the evening, and strike a 
balance next day perhaps by writing 
ferocious essays on Woman's Extrav- 
agance, and Fashion's Follies. Mrs. 



234 ^^^ Operetta hi Profile. 

Pepperton came up to me with my 
Ideal Young Man and a *' Permit me 
to present you." 

Down sank my brocade in a minuet 
courtesy, while my heart sank much 
lower. *' Dear Mrs. Pepperton, this gen- 
tleman and I are already acquainted." 

** Oh ! indeed ! " bringing out each 
word with a dreadful distinctness. *' As 
you never forwarded the note I gave 
you for this gentleman, and consequently 
he was ignorant that he had been asked 
to join our club, I thought that there 
must have been some mistake, and that, 
after all, you were strangers." 

The gentleman in question promptly 
interposed. " There was a mistake, Mrs. 
Pepperton, but not of this young lady's 
making. The note was forwarded." 
And he gave me his arm. 

" So then," and Mrs. Pepperton's tone 



An Operetta in Profile. 235 

was very sharp indeed, ** you had other 
reasons for not coming." 

"Precisely; it was quite unavoidable." 

*' Indeed ! and I was told — How- 
ever," recovering herself, ** I beg your 
pardon, I am sure ; " and with a curt 
nod at me, " and yours also." 

** I am not sure that we do pardon 
you," muttered my companion, looking 
after her as she swept away. Then, as 
we walked off arm in arm, *' All the 
same, you know, I never did receive any 
note of invitation, or any note at all." 

" I should think not," said I, promptly. 
" How could you, when I addressed it 
to you at the Siasconset post-office? " 

" You did? " He stopped short, 
stared, laughed, stared again. "And 
might I — dare I — ask did you have 
any reason now — that is, any other 
reason — than a girl's 'because'?" 



236 An Operetta in Profile. 

**Was it likely I should send it?" I 
glanced up and glanced down, after the 
fashion of heroines in circulating-library 
novels. **You had been in town three 
days, — had you not? — and I learned 
the fact from a club committee." 

I shall never see as much admiration 
in the eyes of any man for some really 
worthy action as I earned by this insin- 
uated fib. But we were stopped short 
by a change and stir all about us. Ladies 
who were sitting rose and settled their 
skirts, and people began to walk in pairs 
towards the great dining-room, where a 
stage was set and seats prepared for an 
audience. There were no programmes ; 
nobody knew of what nature were the 
promised theatricals. The music was 
from '' Feramorz," and my thoughts 
rushed on with it as if in it I had found 
a translation of the last hour. I began 



Alt Operetta in Profile: 237 

to feel, with a thrill of sudden fear, that 
I had divined the object of the im- 
promptu theatricals from the moment 
I became sure that everybody, like my- 
self, was equally surprised and bewil- 
dered by this entertainment. 

The curtain rose on — Raya Yog ! 
A sort of simultaneous ah ! stirred the 
audience. Except for a long and high 
screen, the stage otherwise was empty. 
Raya Yog came to the footlights, bowed, 
and began at once without hesitation : 

" Ladies and gentlemen, there has 
been an accident. Something has hap- 
pened to my Marionettes. The oldest, 
I may say the most reliable, members of 
my troupe (for there are marionettes 
and marionettes) are broken. We were 
coolly received at the last town before 
this. Our receipts were so small that 
my companion and I were stinted for 



238 An Operetta in Profile. 

even bread and cheese. We came here 
on foot. As for new marionettes, as you 
see, you might as well have talked of 
going to the moon. I say this, not to 
complain, but to explain. There are 
marionettes that are sensitive and plia- 
ble, so to speak; they respond to the 
thrill of your thought, and gather to 
themselves something that is almost life : 
there are others that will always be 
wood. That is why I said that we had 
lost some of the best members of our 
company. We ask, therefore, the con- 
sideration and the patience of the honor- 
able society." 

He bowed gravely and retired behind 
the screen, leaving the audience in a 
state of positive stupefaction. Many of 
them were in actual doubt if he were 
not the owner of a troupe of veritable 
marionettes hitherto kept in the back- 



An Operetta in Profile. 239 

ground. They could not even decide 
to laugh. The music began, softened 
and subdued, as an accompaniment to a 
dialogue conducted behind the screen 
by two voices, Raya Yog's and our 
Author's. What followed, is not easy to 
convey ; and as every reader writes half 
of the book, unless you suffer your im- 
agination to set the scene, I doubt if I 
can make it plain. You must fancy the 
beat of the music, the quiver of light, 
the perfumed murmur, rustle, and stir 
of an audience not only curious and 
astonished, but vaguely conscious of an 
occult reason for the speed, secrecy, and 
impromptu nature of the whole affair. 
Then you are to picture to yourself the 
Marionettes. 

** Here," said the soft, deliberate voice 
of Raya Yog, "' are two of my most 
spirituelle characters, Alice and Bessie, 



240 An Operetta in Profile. 

— young ladies, as you will see, not 
long from school." Enter the Mario- 
nettes, — Madame Chiff-Chaff and Lucy 
Pepperton, — red and white, round-eyed 
and staring, long braids, droll velvet 
jackets, and spangled skirts, wooden and 
limp at the same time. If they moved, 
they jerked and skipped ; if they stopped, 
they leaned helplessly in impossible 
attitudes. You would have said there 
was not a joint between them. As the 
cleverness of it dawned on the audience, 
a storm of bravos and a perfect hail of 
clapping hands welcomed them over and 
over again. But not a ray of recogni- 
tion illumined either face ; they simply 
bobbed and stared, while the conversa- 
tion was conducted behind the screen 
by two voices, — one accented after the 
English manner of fashionable young 
lady ; the other — the other was one 



An Operetta in Profile. 241 

in a thousand, a familiar voice with a 
peculiar drawl and catch. Many people 
declared afterwards they had recognized 
it from the first. Did I recognize it? 
No, not positively; but I suspected — 
anything, everything, as I waited, cold 
and shaking, for what was coming. My 
Ideal Young Man talked to me, I think ; 
but I certainly never answered him, nor 
did I hear the opening conversation. 
I was asking myself again and again 
why had Raya Yog said that ** in half 
an hour it would be too late " ? And 
what had been done? And what could 
he do? And had it been too late? And 
what had I to do with it all? A great 
laugh from the audience brought me to 
the surface again. Alice had just an- 
nounced to Bessie that she had been 
reading a newspaper. 
"And why, pray? " 
16 



242 Alt operetta in Profile. 

** I expected to find a heading in 
large black letters : ' The Modern Herod : 
A New Slaughter of the Innocents.' " 

" You mean because you see no young 
men?" 

" Precisely." 

*' Better look in Cinderella's house ; 
they are all there, calling on her." 

" I hate that girl." 

*' So do we all of us." 

"If you could keep a secret — " 

"Why, of course I can." 

" Very well ! We girls intend to boy- 
cott her ! We shall invite every girl 
in the Set, and omit her ; nod at her in 
dressing-rooms, and then make a circle 
back towards her; take all her special 
friends in the cotillon when she is upon 
the floor, and leave her no partners; 
and — Oh ! what was that? " 

" Some one knocked." 



An Operetta in Profile. 243 

"Alice and Bessie," said Raya Yog 
in his natural voice, '* are pining for 
society. I have provided them with a 
companion. Here is my most reliable 
Marionette, — the Operetta." 

At the name and entrance of the Op- 
eretta, nods and smiles rippled through 
the audience. The reliable Marionette 
was Mr. Skeggs, painted in wrinkles, 
and wearing an old woman's cap and 
cloak, and a conspicuous legend, '' The 
Operetta," on his shoulder. Far from 
the wooden helplessness of the Mario- 
nettes, he pirouetted and skipped with 
a sudden stop and flop every now and 
then, and an instantaneous doubling up 
that never failed to bring a laugh from 
the audience. 

The conversation began again. 

" Bessie, why did Raya Yog send us 
an Operetta? " 



244 ^^^ Operetta in Profile. 

*' I have no Idea ; there is nothing 
amusing in an Operetta." 

** Especially as neither of us sing." 

** I beg your pardon, young ladies " 
(the Operetta spoke for itself in a shrill 
falsetto) ; *' I have been an Operetta for 
many years, and it is my experience 
that the people who sing the worst, like 
me best." 

'* Then by that rule we should be very 
fond of you. Pray what is your name? 
What Operetta are you ? " 

" Cinderella." 

'' I don't like that name." 

'* Nor I either." 

*^What a pity, my dears ! For wher- 
ever I am, there must be a Cinderella. I 
am obliged to earn my living as an Op- 
eretta. I am. in reduced circumstances, 
you see, having come down in the 
world. Once I was a fairy godmother." 



A?i Operetta i7i Profile. 245 

" Rubbish ! " 

" Not in the least ; there is no non- 
sense about it. Fairies are now as 
much out of fashion as the whaHng in- 
dustry, and must hang up by their heels 
in Faiiyland like bats, or live in a book. 
I preferred the last; therefore I am the 
fairy godmother in the tale of Cinder- 
ella. But it is monstrously stupid, I 
can assure you, this living in a book. 
And the illustrations, my dears, they are 
positive nightmares ! — particularly now 
that they do us in mediaeval style, all 
out of joint and perspective. I was 
really unable to endure it ; so I turned 
my pumpkin into an Operetta, and 
started on my travels. But I can go 
nowhere without my Cinderella." 

" Here she is, then," said- Raya Yog's 
voice, and shoved in — the Girl of the 
Diagram ! The audience looked, and 



246 An Operetta in Profile. 

burst out again in applause. In stare, in 
limp, in wooden, wide-eyed helplessness, 
she outdid the others entirely, as usual. 
And I never saw such a head of hair, — 
such a tangled triumph of frowziness ! 
She was painted as if the red on one 
cheek had been partially rubbed and 
smeared; one arm hung limp, and the 
other jerked stiffly, — the absurdity in 
this, as in the other cases, being height- 
ened by the local element; that is, by 
the recognition, under this strange dis- 
guise, of a well-known and a very differ- 
ent person. I heard the audience laugh 
again and again; but there seemed a 
gulf between them and me. I was look- 
ing at a very different stage, where my 
emotions were playing a tragedy of 
anguished suspense. There was now 
not only that familiar voice behind the 
screen, — Miss Skeggs's voice, — but the 



An Operetta in Profile. 247 

Marionette, played by Madame Chiff- 
chaff, no longer jerked in marionette 
fashion, but walked ; and the gait, as if 
one's feet, were all corns, and one's 
elbow a handle to work the body along, 
suggested — Miss Skeggs again ! 

" My dear Cinderella," said the Oper- 
etta, *' go into a corner. Your poor old 
godmother always loves you, but these 
young ladies do not like your name." 

Here the Operetta laughed, the ac- 
companying music went off, as at a cue, 
into '' Sylvia," the Marionettes bobbed^ 
suggesting a nightmare minuet, and the 
Operetta danced a vigorous pas seul 
with such fun and fire that the audience 
did more than laugh, — it shrieked ; 
and for five consecutive minutes Mr. 
Skeggs found himself popular. The 
voices resumed, — 

** Bessie, are you amused?" 



248 An Operetta in Profile. 

"Why should I be? Is an old 
woman and another girl your idea of 
amusement? " 

" But, young ladies," said the Oper- 
etta, " how should you like my fairy 
prince? To be sure, he is somewhat 
spoiled and conceited." 

Both voices together: " Oh ! that will 
not matter." 

" His manners are excessively imper- 
tinent." 

Both voices together; "We do not 
mind that." 

" He has been living for a time in the 
Arabian Nights, and he was so petted 
by the ladies of that society that one 
would think he was Haroun Al Raschid 
at least." 

Both voices together : " You only 
make us the more anxious to see him. 
Have him directly." 



A71 operetta in Profile. 249 

Raya Yog's natural voice : ''Be care- 
ful, pkase, of that wheeled platform; 
it has been broken and glued again 
three times already." 

Here entered the Portrait, — literally 
as the tin god on wheels, Roman costume, 
sandals, eyeglass, and dress-coat, face 
painted into a conceited immobility, 
and a footman carefully drawing a 
wheeled platform on which the tin god 
was tied with labored clumsiness by 
strings and wires. Intense delight and 
vociferous applause, especially from the 
younger portion of the audience ; while 
some elderly ladies sourly confided to 
each other that the Portrait was simply 
appearing in his own character. 

'* Now then, your Highness," began 
the Operetta as the stir subsided ; 
** look alive, your Highness ! Recol- 
lect you are no longer in Cashmere, but 



250 An Operetta in Profile. 

in America with your poor old Oper- 
etta. And here are two charming 
young ladies waiting to be amused." 

*' Two, Godmother ! one, you mean." 
And it became evident that the Prince 
had acquired a violent English accent 
in Cashmere. 

" Ya-as, I always thought Cinderella 
a pretty girl ; but, like that fellow in the 
opera, — the other opera, you know, — 
who * was a trustee for Beauty,' I am a 
trustee for Form. It is bad form to 
amuse anybody." 

" Only one young lady ! Alice, do 
you hear that? " 

** Yes ; and I remember the Anti- 
Cinderella Society." 

" Hush ! " 

"Why? They will never hear." 

** Not hear, when you talk at the top 
of your voice? " 



J 



An Operetta in Profile, 251 

" How can they? They have not got 
their cue. On the stage, people can 
neither hear nor see till they get their 
cue." 

" Very good, then ; let us boycott 
her now ! " 

*' Patience ! She is already in her 
corner with her face to the wall. What 
more would you have ? " 

"But, your Highness," — this was 
the Operetta again, — ** these young 
ladies are not amused." 

**Why not. Godmother? They are 
looking at me. And, for that matter, 
why not take the contract yourself ? " 

" Not in this town, my son ; I have 
tried that already." 

** Why not. Godmother? They are 
always complaining of monotony and 
dulness." 

The Operetta gave an antic skip. 



252 An Operetta ifi Profile, 

" Highness, look here, and here, and 
here ! " and turning and twisting like a 
fakir, it revealed pitiful rents and shreds 
and hanging rags of garments. " I 
have been all but torn in pieces already. 

* Do you mean to entertain my neigh- 
bor's family as well as my own ? ' says 
one. * And of course I do, my good 
woman,* answered I, in all innocence; 

* the more the merrier.' * And pray are 
you in Moody and Sankey's, or in the 
Grace Church collection? ' cries another. 

* Not at all, my good madam,' I reply 
politely, * as I should have no business 
in either. I am only a poor old fairy 
out of a situation and trying to get an 
honest living as an Operetta.' ' Such 
spectacles,' says a third, ' are immoral 
and degrading, and will lower the public 
taste.' ' Not to be done,' I replied ; ' it 
is as low as possible already.' * And 



A71 operetta in Profile. 253 

they would injure our town-hall,' cries 
a fourth. ' That also is not possible,* 
said I. And at that, my dear boy, they 
all set upon me, as if inspired to drive 
me out of town. I was obliged to fly 
for life. No, no, your Highness ; better 
be anything in this town than clever 
or amusing." 

'' Ya-as," from the Prince (or rather 
from the voice that personated him be- 
hind the screen). " Dog in the manger, 
eh ? Won't live and let live, eh ? Beastly 
bore I call that ! But I have my Alad- 
din's palace here." 

'' What of that ? " 

** And some admission-tickets. So 
you see you can give the tickets to the 
young ladies and show them the pal- 
ace. 

" Give the tickets yourself." 

" Stupid ! how can I? Beg your par- 



254 ^^^ Operetta in Profile, 

don, Godmother ! But do you not see 
that my platform is glued in three 
places, and that it is not safe to 
stir?" 

** And do you not see that, for rea- 
sons just shown you, I am obliged to 
keep my face to the company?" 

** Very good. Give Miss Bessie the 
tickets; she can distribute them." 

I saw Miss Skeggs start; then she 
turned and looked at me, — an odious 
look ; and a smile equally odious curled 
her lips as she turned away again and 
whispered. The woman to whom she 
spoke started violently, and then 
whispered in her turn to her next 
neighbor. The whisper spread and 
widened, like circles from a stone. A 
dozen persons perhaps turned and 
looked at me. There was a silence on 
the stage ; the lights had been suddenly 



An Operetta in Profile. 255 

lowered, a curtain softly drawn from 
an Aladdin's palace lighted, radiant, — 
a brilliant flashing from jewelled 
arches in the obscurity; the Operetta 
jerked itself down to the footlights, and 
stood holding three envelopes in hand ; 
the Marionette Bessie hobbled forward 
to take them ; a voice spoke from be- 
hind the screen : *' No one can hear 
me or see me, as no one has any cue." 
She took the envelopes and read them 
aloud : *' Bessie, Alice, and Cinderella." 
" Never ! Cinderella shall not go." The 
Cinderella envelope dropped to the floor, 
and the Marionette jerked her foot over 
it. *' Now she has no admission-ticket, 
and must stay behind in her corner," 
declared the voice with a peculiar drawl 
and catch, — the voice that was one of a 
thousand. Miss Skeggs's voice, in fact ! 
The audience sat stunned ; Bessie and 



256 An Operetta in Profile. 

Alice hobbled away together, the Bessie 
Marionette still keeping the admission- 
ticket under her foot. 

" They are gone to the palace," said 
Raya Yog's voice, '' and poor Cinder- 
ella is left behind." 

** But she shall see the palace, for all 
that," piped the Operetta. At that the 
music from a weird throbbing minor 
rushed crescendo into a measure from 
'* Coppelia," the stage burned and 
glowed in rose light, and the Aladdin's 
palace opened on the Statues and the 
• graceful turnings and poses of the 
Statue dance. 

There was a stir and consternation in 
the audience. Miss Skeggs had fainted, 
and was being taken out quite insensi- 
ble. Heads were clustered together, 
and tongues wagged. As for me, I was 
dumb. I saw it all plainly enough now. 



An Operetta in Profile. 257 

But for that half hour with Raya Yog in 
the conservatory the Bessie Marionette 
would have copied my gait and spoken 
with my voice. What an application of 
the social knout! And how like Mrs. 
Pepperton ! — impetuous as a storm, 
rigidly honorable herself, and as merci- 
less to all falsehood as she was kind- 
hearted and generous. 

The curtain fell, and the audience 
overflowed into the drawing-room. 
Everybody talked marionettes and 
statues, and looked Skeggs, — who 
had been taken home, accompanied 
by her family. There was a hasty ex- 
planation between Raya Yog, our Au- 
thor, and myself in a little curtained 
recess leading out of the library. '' The 
detention of the official notices of the 
balloting had been discovered, thanks 
to the energy of our accompanist," 

17 



258 An Operetta in Profile, 

said Raya Yog; and as he spoke his 
face darkened slightly. That gentleman 
had visited all the absentees, compared 
the postal dates on their cards, and 
notified Mrs. Pepperton. That lady in 
her indignation desired to make a pub- 
lic example : she wished to call a second 
business-meeting, and openly accuse 
and crush the guilty parties, and was 
with difficulty persuaded to modify this 
official justice into the play of the Mario- 
nettes. *' But temptations are sharp and 
sudden with all of us," said Raya Yog; 
" and a girl in her short life has not had 
time to set up a rogues' gallery of them 
in her mind, or to realize that the worst 
thought may look as innocent as a can 
of dynamite. And there was another 
lady also" — smiling at our Author — 
" who was sure that you were true at 
heart. Then at the very last — for at 



An Operetta in Profile > 259 

first he preserved absolute silence — 
Mr. Skeggs declared that he placed 
you, Miss Skeggs, and the official docu- 
ments in her carriage ; that before go- 
ing he saw Miss Skeggs give a final 
shove to a pile of envelopes peeping 
from under a portfolio, with a sugges- 
tion of stealthiness that stirred his curir 
osity. He went back to look at them, 
and they were the cards that were after- 
wards mailed too late ; but he had men- 
tioned the matter to no one, not feeling 
sure that it was any affair of his. The 
substitution in the Marionette mimicry 
had been made, of course, at the last 
moment. Absolute secrecy had been 
observed. The Statues knew nothing 
but that they were to perform the al- 
ready rehearsed Statue dance ; the num- 
ber of Marionettes had been so limited 
to preserve the secret; and the rehears- 



26o All Operetta in Profile. ' 

ing — not of the dialogue, for that was 
only an impromptu charade between 
Raya Yog and our Author — had been 
something desperate ; so also had been 
everybody in the secret in the en- 
deavor to soften Mrs. Pepperton and 
omit that final flick of the knout. But, 
as inexorable as Justice, she held firm 
to the official meeting, or the Guilty 
Marionette ; and with tears in her eyes 
kind-hearted Lucy Pepperton implored 
Raya Yog and our Author not to aban- 
don the Marionettes, as her mother was 
entirely in earnest, and quite determined 
to strike at the guilty. Miss Skeggs's 
own conduct had lessened their reluct- 
ance ; she had filled the town with 
hints that were simply anonymous ac- 
cusations, and had disgusted everybody 
by walking about covered from top 
to toe with a new friendship for the 



Alt Operetta in Profile. 261 

Cinderella of the evening, as though it 
were a sort of moral waterproof." 

There was just one answer to make 
to all this, and I made it, — 

*' You are two good Samaritans. As 
for myself, I have begun my rogues' 
gallery on the spot. The first photo- 
graph is already hung. It is my own ; 
for I am just as bad, after all, you know, 
as poor Skeggs." 

Then I got on a proper expression, went 
out into the light, and met Mr. Skeggs, 
who instantly gave me his arm. " I 
have been looking for you everywhere," 
said he confidentially, " for I want to be 
praised. You owe me something, — 
indeed you do, more than you know, 
perhaps. Little Dave Skeggs may not 
be worth very much, but he never failed 
a friend yet, and you never needed a 
friend more. Somebody, who shall be 



262 An Operetta in Profile. 

nameless " (here he opened his eyes very- 
wide), "has personified battle, murder, 
and death for several days. But I had 
my pawn ready. Said I to myself, * Bet- 
ter wait till I make iny move ; ' for I saw 
our dear Skeggs hide those envelopes. 
And I think, by the way, that faint was 
real." 

*' I think it was," said I dryly ; and, 
filled with disgust as I was for myself 
and all other shams, there came into 
my mind a sentence, heard a hundred 
times before, *' The truth shall make 
you free." We struggle on through life 
under a heavy, galling yoke of appear- 
ances, shams, and pretences lest some 
one shall think or shall not think, shall 
say or shall not say, something about 
us ; and the truth alone can make us 
free. I saw it as when a light is sud- 
denly turned upon a dark road, and 



Aft Operetta in Profile. 263 

stopped before Mrs. Pepperton. My 
mind was made up. There were stand- 
ing near her Raya Yog, Cinderella, 
Lucy, the Author, the Portrait, my Ideal, 
a dozen Chiff-Chafif and Statue girls, and 
various men and matrons. 

" Mrs. Pepperton," said I, — and at 
the sound of my voice an instant hush 
seemed to settle on everybody, — *' this 
has been a most successful evening ; and 
for me it has been something more. 
I have learned a lesson that I shall 
never forget. And, Mrs. Pepperton '* 
(hastily, for she seemed about to 
speak), ''do you like my brocade? It 
is Mamma's, you know. She lent it to 
me for the evening because I actually 
had no decent gown to wear, and of 
course it is too grand for me. But 
don't you think it is handsome?" 

Everybody stirred and looked — how 



264 An Operetta in Profile. 

shall I say? — breathless. And Mrs. 
Pepperton ! She began, *' My dear 
child ! " — and then, woman of impulse 
that she is, seized and kissed me heart- 
ily ; and as I emerged from her yellow 
satin embrace, somebody was offering 
me an arm with an air of chivalrous 
devotion, — my Ideal Young Man ! So 
Mamma's gown was not pirated from her, 
after all. I never could wear it again 
after that, you see. And (have you ob- 
served ?) I have never told you whether 
I am pretty or plain. It was quite de- 
liberate on my part ; for, except Char- 
lotte Bronte, in all feminine first-person 
writing the young woman begins with a 
hideous portrait of herself as a plain, 
and too often slatternly, person, and 
ends as fascinating and irresistible, so 
inevitably that I feared lest this se- 
quence of events made a part of the 



Aji Operetta in Profile. 265 

concealed mechanics of such a book, — 
a mental inclined plane down which an 
author might slide without intention. 
So you see I have been careful. 

" If we shadows have offended, 
Think but this, and all is mended, — 
That you have but slumbered here 
While these visions did appear. 
Gentles, do not reprehend ; 
If you pardon, we will mend." 



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